EXCLUSIVE: Justice League and Fantastic Beasts star Ezra Miller is attached to star in thriller The Mourner for producer Echo Lake Entertainment. Paradigm will begin sales on the project at the EFM in Berlin.

Casper Kiriya (Last Knights) is set to direct from a script by Robin Shushan (AMC’s Feed The Beast), based on the Japanese novel by Arata Tendo. Mike Marcus will produce for Echo Lake Entertainment, along with Kiriya. Production is planned for summer 2019.

The Mourner follows a jaded and embittered homicide detective on the trail of murderous sex traffickers, who discovers new spiritual meaning in her life when she comes across a mystical young man (Miller) whose calling in life is to mourn the dead who have no one else to mourn them. Tendo won the Naoki Prize in 2008 for the novel Itamu Hito (The Mourner). The book got a Japanese-language adaptation in 2015.

Miller will be starring as The Flash in DC Universe’s stand-alone movie about the superhero character. Kiriya’s directorial debut was live action-CGI pic Casshern in 2004. Recent movies include Last Knights starring Clive Owen and Morgan Freeman, and Goemon, based on a Japanese folk legend echoing the Robin Hood tale. Former MGM Pictures President Marcus’s credits for Echo Lake include The Ward and You Kill Me.

Miller is repped by Paradigm, Hamilton Hodell, and Peikoff Mahan. Kiriya is repped by Paradigm. Shushan is repped by CAA and Stefanie Epstein Productions.