Netflix’s highly-anticipated adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid‘s best-selling novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has found its director.
Leslye Headland (Bachelorette, Sleeping With Other People) is on board to helm the film. Liz Tigelaar has penned the script, and Liza Chasin will produce for 3Dot Productions.
The book has spent over 120 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller Paperback list, six years after being published, and has recently turned into a TikTok phenomenon. No surprise that Netflix quickly snapped up the rights.
The story is set during a long awaited interview with a young journalist, where Evelyn Hugo, an aging Hollywood starlet, pulls back the curtain on her seven marriages. As she tells tales of Hollywood scandals, betrayals, and woe, she unveils shocking truths about her own life and the lives of everyone around her.
The project reportedly had every high-profile director in town chasing it for months, so this obviously marks a major win for Headland, who recently wrapped production on the highly-anticipated Star Wars series The Acolyte.
She also previously worked on TV shows such as Black Monday and Smilf, before directing a number of female-led comedy films. But what likely helped her land this gig was her biggest break thus far – becoming showrunner for Netflix’s own hit series, Russian Doll. Headland was showrunner and writer, and also directed a number of episodes.
Considering the success she turned Russian Doll into – and the buzz around The Acolyte is big after early footage was shown at the recent Star Wars Celebration event in London – Headland looks like the perfect person to helm an adaptation that will have a lot of anticipation around it.
Much like this project had many high-profile directors circling it, expect many high-profile actresses to be interested in the lead role. Obviously we won’t see the finish product for quite a while, but expect this to be one of Netflix’s bigger film releases over the next few years.
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