EXCLUSIVE: Chicago fourth-grader Theo Clark Leber has landed a starring role alongside Dwayne Johnson in the film. Lizard MusicBenny Safdie’s adaptation of Daniel Pinkwater’s 1976 novel for Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists.
A 10-year-old girl gets a potential career opportunity after a months-long casting process. Lizard Music marks his feature debut.
A hybrid of live-action and CGI, Safdie’s film follows a boy (Leber), left to his own devices, who stumbles upon a secret late-night broadcast in which lizards play otherworldly music, and a secret door to extraordinary things opens. His search for answers leads him to an eccentric and quirky old man called Chicken Man (Johnson) and his beloved companion, a 111-year-old chicken named Claudia—two kindred spirits who found each other at just the right moment. United by this shared vision, they embark on an adventure that begins as a hunt for a hidden society, but grows into something much more: a journey through unseen worlds, unexpected harmonies, and an inextricable connection between lost souls who discover magic not only in what they find, but in each other.
Safdie wrote a sequel Destruction machineThe A24 sports drama also starred Johnson, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for his role as former amateur wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr. Producers on Lizard Music They include Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt of UA, Safdie of Out for the Count Productions, Johnson of Seven Bucks Productions and David Coplan of Magnetic Fields Entertainment.
Leber, an up-and-coming Evanston, Illinois native who loves lacrosse, soccer, hanging out with his best friends, and all things art and history, was most recently seen in the production Leopoldstadt produced by Writers Theater in Glencoe, Illinois. He is represented by Matt Fletcher at Arise Artist Agency, Laura Alexander at Talent X Alexander and attorney Jeff Heinick at Jackoway Austen Tyerman.