EXCLUSIVE: Rooney Mara is set to star with Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett in Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s first directorial outing since his Best Picture winning The Shape of Water. He’s making the film for Fox Searchlight under the deal he made at the studio after they collaborated on the Oscar winner.

Del Toro wrote the script with Kim Morgan. The film’s being produced by del Toro and J. Miles Dale with TSG Entertainment, with Fox Searchlight acquiring worldwide distribution rights.

The film is based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel about a corrupt con-man who teams with a female psychiatrist to trick people into giving them money. Mara plays Molly, the closest thing to Stan’s true love. He meets her early on and they take the act they learned from the circus to Chicago. Cooper plays Stan. Mara and Blanchett previously starred together in Carol.

Tyrone Power and Coleen Gray starred in a 1947 movie adaptation directed by Edmund Goulding.

Mara is repped by WME and Management 360. She last starred in the Garth Davis-directed Mary Magdalene.