EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Peddle, the director behind The Aggressives and Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later, has signed on to adapt the Southern crime thriller Cold Moon Rising by North Carolina author Michael Sledge.
Cold Moon Rising is Sledge’s debut novel. The book tells the story of a violent home invasion that spirals into a web of kidnapping, deception, corruption, and murder across the contemporary American South, per the synopsis. Peddle is said to be developing the feature in close collaboration with Sledge.
“Crime stories often focus on the mechanics of violence,” Peddle said in a statement. “What interested me most in Cold Moon Rising was the emotional archaeology beneath it: the invisible fractures inside a marriage, the layers of secrecy people carry, and the unexpected connections that can emerge inside extreme circumstances.”
Peddle added: “At the same time, I became deeply interested in the humanity of the people committing the crime. I didn’t see them as monsters so much as people cornered by circumstance, limited choices, and desperation. I want the audience to experience the mystery alongside the detectives in real time, uncovering the truth piece by piece rather than standing outside of it. ”
Peddle is best known for his documentary The Aggressives, which first premiered in 2005 at SXSW and has since become a landmark piece of non-fiction filmmaking for its intimate portrait of masculine-presenting lesbians and trans men of color living in New York City at the turn of the millennium.
In 2023, Peddle returned with Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later, revisiting four of the original participants—Kisha, Trevon, Octavio, and Chin—to explore how their lives, and the cultural conversation surrounding gender identity, have evolved over the past quarter-century. Showtime acquired the film.
Earlier this summer, the two films were picked up by the Criterion Channel.
Peddle is also attached to direct his original screenplay Rose Moon, a Southern Gothic psychological drama starring Gabourey Sidibe.
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