EXCLUSIVE: One day before Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter premieres at the Venice Film Festival, I can reveal that the filmmaker’s next project is already gathering pace.

Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver are attached to lead Master Gardener, a crime thriller Schrader is directing from his original screenplay. It follows a meticulous horticulturist (Edgerton) who is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate and pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager (Weaver). When she demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great niece, it unlocks dark secrets from a buried violent past.

HanWay is reuniting with the director having sold out the world on The Card Counter, which Focus Features releases this month. The company is co-repping the North American sale for Master Gardener with David Gonzales, Schrader’s manager.

Amanda Crittenden of Kojo Studios and Scott LaStaiti are producing with David Gonzales. Luisa Law and KOJO Studios’ Linda Ujuk and Dale Roberts will executive produce. Principal photography is scheduled to begin early next year in the southern United States.

“When the idea first started it was one of my male protagonists but then these two women intervened and it became something more complex and unique,” Schrader told Deadline.

“Paul Schrader is at the top of his form, and HanWay is excited to be collaborating again with one of film’s greatest writer-directors,” added HanWay Films MD Gabrielle Stewart. “Master Gardener is the natural successor to the brilliant film The Card Counter which will have its world premiere tomorrow at the Venice Film Festival. Character-driven, sexy and surprising, with plenty of intrigue one would expect from a Schrader film.”

Edgerton is represented by WME and Anonymous Content. Weaver by UTA, attorney Alan Wertheimer and The Lede Company. Schrader is represented by manager, David Gonzales.