‘Feed’ Casts Rosamund Pike as a Momfluencer in Twisted New Body Horror

Rosamund Pike is turning momfluencer for her next film, with the Gone Girl and I Care a Lot star set to lead and produce Feed, a new body horror from The Acolyte and Russian Doll filmmaker Leslye Headland that will launch international sales at the American Film Market.

Written by Daniella Isaacs and inspired by Hanna Bergholm’s 2022 Finnish horror Hatching, the project centres on Erin, a single mother whose ambitions for her tween gymnast daughter take a disturbing turn after she discovers an obscure collagen supplement promising to transform the girl into a social media star. The online success arrives quickly, but so does something considerably less desirable as her daughter begins undergoing a monstrous physical transformation.

The film is described as a twisted mother-daughter story exploring parental ambition, protection and the increasingly unstable line between predator and prey, with Pike also producing through her Primitive Streak banner.

“Long have I wanted to make a film that plays anarchically with our obsession with social media and self-improvement, our desire for fame without notable admirable skill and, let’s put it out there, the monstrosity of modern motherhood,” Pike said.

She added that Feed examines several different forms of appetite, from the way online communities consume youth and beauty to the hunger for success shared by both mother and daughter. Pike described the story as rooted in contemporary fears surrounding the digital world, while using the conventions of genre cinema to explore the dangers attached to growing up, motherhood and life inside a body.

Headland will direct after recently serving as creator and showrunner of Disney+ series The Acolyte. Her previous credits include Sleeping with Other People and co-creating Netflix’s Russian Doll, while her theatre work includes the Broadway production Cult of Love.

“Daniella’s script is audacious, disturbing and deeply human, and Rosamund is among the boldest actors working today,” Headland said. “I couldn’t ask for better partners to take on the darker corners of this story.”

For Pike, the role continues a run of characters with complicated relationships to power, control and public perception. She earned an Academy Award nomination for David Fincher’s Gone Girl, later won a Golden Globe for I Care a Lot and more recently appeared in Saltburn. She has also expanded her work behind the camera, receiving an Emmy nomination as a producer on Netflix’s 3 Body Problem.

Feed will be produced by Pike through Primitive Streak alongside Shelley Browning for Magnolia Entertainment, Steven Schneider for Spooky Pictures, Ara Keshishian and Petr Jakl for ZQ Entertainment and Sam Ritzenberg for Agile Films. ZQ Entertainment financed development of Isaacs’ screenplay.

International sales on Feed are launching at the American Film Market, with further casting, production and release details still to be announced. We’ll share more news as it comes.