Asa Butterfield Will Come of Age in ‘The House of Tomorrow’

It must have been a dark day for Asa Butterfield when he found out that it would be Tom Holland, not him, that had been cast as the lead character in Spider-Man: Homecoming. How exactly does one properly mourn missing out on a career-defining role when you’re only 18? All those countless hours of costumes and hanging upside down from a tangle of wires, not to mention the strict diet and daily workout routine... come to think of it, maybe Butterfield wasn’t that upset after all. Eat a brownie, kid, because you can.

What Butterfield did gain by missing out on Spider-Man was some flexibility, and the young actor has shown that if he can’t play a mainstream superhero, he can at least push himself a little bit and see what happens. Hopes are still high for this fall’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an X-Men movie without all the baggage, and now Variety is reporting that Butterfield has been tapped to star in the coming-of-age drama The House of Tomorrow for production company Superlative Film.

The House of Tomorrow tells the story of Sebastian Prendergast, a young man who lives with his eccentric grandmother and is homeschooled in the teachings of futurist R. Buckminster Fuller. When his grandmother becomes ill, Prendergast is forced to venture out to the real world, where he unexpectedly befriends young punk Jared Whitcomb. Whitcomb teaches Prendergast about life and punk music; the two young boys form a group called The Rash, and when Prendergast’s grandmother recovers and moves to bring him back home, Prendergast must decide if his newfound life is worth fighting for. For a more detailed synopsis, visit the book’s website courtesy of author Peter Bognanni.

Butterfield will star alongside Alex Wolff in a cast that also features Nick Offerman, Ellen Burstyn, and Maude Apatow. The film will be directed by first-time filmmaker Pete Livolsi; you can check out his 2014 short film Leonard in Slow Motion, which stars Martin Starr, in the video below.