Sydney Sweeney is heading back to the Hudson Valley. Sony Pictures has landed Hollow, a reimagining of Washington Irving’s 1820 classic The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, with Sweeney attached to star and produce, according to Deadline, which broke the story after the project sold as a hot package this week.
The film is based on an as-yet-unpublished debut novel by Lindsey Anderson Beer, who wrote and directed 2023’s Pet Sematary: Bloodlines and will also write and direct this adaptation. Beer sold the novel to Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in a preemptive deal that pulled it off the market before it could reach auction; the book itself isn’t due out until fall 2027, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Rather than centering the story on schoolteacher Ichabod Crane, Hollow shifts its focus to Katrina Van Tassel, the character Sweeney will play. The novel and film reframe her as the central figure in a “dangerous mystery and seductive supernatural love triangle,” rather than the passive romantic prize she’s traditionally been in past adaptations. ScreenRant describes the project as blending gothic atmosphere with psychological and erotic-thriller elements, aiming for a contemporary reinvention rather than another straightforward period piece.
Producing alongside Beer’s own Lab Brew banner is Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap, along with Sweeney’s newly formed Honey Trap. As MovieWeb notes, Hollow marks Honey Trap’s first film under its recently announced first-look deal with Sony, a company Sweeney is running alongside longtime collaborator Kaylee McGregor. Beer, for her part, has said she deliberately avoids rewatching earlier screen versions of the story, including Tim Burton’s 1999 film, and instead draws from Irving’s original text and regional Hudson Valley folklore. She’s also been separately attached to a different Sleepy Hollow retelling at Paramount since 2022, though this marks the first time she’s adapting a story of her own creation.
For Sweeney, Hollow represents a return to feature films after a packed stretch that included last year’s The Housemaid, which crossed $400 million at the global box office, and her final season as Cassie on HBO’s Euphoria. Collider notes the actress has built a track record in horror through films like Immaculate and Night Teeth, making her a natural fit for a project already generating comparisons to her past genre work.
Irving’s original story has been adapted for the screen many times over the past century, from a 1922 silent film through Disney’s 1949 animated segment to Tim Burton’s Johnny Depp-led 1999 feature and a Fox television series that ran from 2013 to 2017. According to ComicBook.com, Sony is now searching for actors to fill out the film’s central love triangle opposite Sweeney, though casting for Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones has not yet been announced.
With the novel still more than a year from publication and no production start date confirmed, Dread Central suggests further casting and story details are likely to trickle out gradually as Sony moves the project toward production.
