The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Room and Short Term 12 star Brie Larson will soon make her directorial debut with a “quirky, independent” comedy feature called Unicorn Store. This comes as exciting news, given her recent casting as the titular character in Captain Marvel; it’s reassuring to hear that her human powers — being a talented actor with crazy emotional range (not to mention the co-director of a Sundance Jury Prize winning 2012 short film) — won’t be completely overwhelmed by tired superpowers, as they so often are for breakout actors these days.
The description of the film (whose screenplay was penned by Samantha McIntyre — a writer for Married) given thus far is cryptic, and the question of whether it actually involves a physical unicorn or a store that sells them remains unanswered. However, what has been revealed is that it follows a woman named Kit — to be played by Larson — who moves home with her parents. It seems that the move is something of a failure to launch situation, as what ensues will “test her ideas of what it really means to grow up.” And that test involves a “mysterious” invitation to a store. (The choice of adjective certainly doesn’t rule out the store’s possession of unicorns; its description as “quirky” could also imply the title’s literalness.)
THR notes that Larson was brought onto the project by producers David Bernad and Ruben Fleischer (she’ll be co-producing with them), after it was initially going to be directed by Youth in Revolt/The Good Girl‘s Miguel Arteta, with Rebel Wilson starring as Kit; the timing ultimately hadn’t worked out with the original participants.