Jason Clarke to psychoanalyze Helen Mirren in Winchester

By Sam Barsanti | September 14, 2016 | 12:46am

Aux Features Film

Back in May, we reported that Helen Mirren was set to star in a movie as Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Winchester. Sarah Winchester is famous in her own right, though, because she spent her vast fortune building and rebuilding her enormous mansion for nearly 40 years until her death in 1922. According to the legends surrounding the house, Winchester purposefully designed it to be confusing so the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles wouldn’t be able to find her. The Dana Scullys of the world, however, believe Sarah Winchester was just a woman who wanted to make a cool house. Naturally, we assumed the Helen Mirren movie would skew closer to the supernatural side.

Now, we know for a fact that it’s skewing to the supernatural side, because a Variety story says the film—titled Winchester—specifically features Winchester as a woman who “throws herself into the construction of an enormous mansion designed to keep the evil spirits at bay.” The Variety report also says she’ll be joined by Jason Clarke, who will be playing a “skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist.” He gets sent to her house to check up on her, but because this is a Hollywood film, he obviously “discovers that her obsession may not be so insane after all.”