Netflix has dropped a trailer for its upcoming film adaptation of Alex North’s The Whisper Man.
North’s novel, published in 2019 by Celadon, tells the story of Tom Kennedy, a widower who moves to a new town with his son. The community is still reckoning with a shocking series of murders 20 years earlier and is thrown into disarray when a young boy goes missing. In the movie, Tom’s son is the boy who’s abducted.
The film adaptation is directed by Tom Kennedy and written by Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer. Adam Scott stars as Tom Kennedy, and Robert De Niro plays his estranged father, a retired police detective. Other cast members include Michelle Monaghan, Michael Keaton, and John Carroll Lynch.
In the trailer, Monaghan, playing police detective Amanda Beck, reads aloud from a note: “If you leave a door half open, soon you’ll hear the whispers spoken. If your window is left unlatched, you’ll hear him tapping at the glass. If you’re lonely, sad, and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you.”
Later, De Niro and Scott sit together at a diner. “Son, I’m sorry it took this to get us together,” De Niro says. Scott responds, “We’re not together. This is me asking you for help. I remember the Whisper Man, and I remember you caught him.”
“I did, 30 years ago,” De Niro says. “He’s doing life in prison.”
“Then how is he killing again?” Scott replies.
The trailer ends with a cassette tape being played. A whispering voice says, “Is there anything else you want to say to your daddy?”
The Whisper Man is scheduled to premiere on Netflix on Aug. 28.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
