Tyler Perry latest name to board Gerard Barrett’s Brain on Fire

The Wrap has revealed that American actor Tyler Perry is the latest big name to join Kerry filmmaker Gerard Barrett’s new film Brain on Fire. Week 1 of filming has already completed in Vancouver.

The Madea and Gone Girl star will play a newspaper editor named Richard at the New York Post, and boss of Chloë Grace Moretz’s lead. Perry joins the previously announced cast of Richard Armitage and Carrie-Anne Moss, as Moretz’s parents, comedian Jenny Slate, and Thomas Mann as Moretz’s boyfriend.

Barrett is adapting the screenplay for the film, which follows a rising journalist who mysteriously starts having seizures and hearing voices. As weeks go by, she moves inexplicably from violence to catatonia — but a last-minute intervention by one doctor finally gives her a diagnosis and hope to rebuild her life.

Brain On Fire is produced by Charlize Theron, Beth Kono, and A.J. Dix for Denver & Delilah Films, Rob Merilees and Lindsay Macadam for Foundation Features, and Gabriel and Daniel Hammond for Broad Green Pictures. Barrett is also attached as co-producer. Broad Green act as distributors in the US, with Mister Smith Entertainment selling the international rights after launching the film at the European Film Market last February.

Brain On Fire will be released at an unspecified date in 2016.