There was much excitement back in 2014 when the rights to Donna Tartt's bestseller The Goldfinch were snapped up. But as sometimes happens in the world of adaptations, the progress has been slow since then. The next step has been taken, though, as Baby Driver's Ansel Elgort has been offered the lead role.
Warner Bros. and Amazon Studios have Brooklyn director John Crowley on board to make the film, and he's been busy taking meetings with potential stars. Tartt's story follows a young man named Theodore Decker who loses his mother in a museum bombing, steals a painting (The Goldfinch, as painted by Carel Fabritius in 1654) in the confused aftermath and then spends his adulthood trying to unravel its mystery. Along the way he is briefly taken in by a wealthy Park Avenue family, moves to Las Vegas, befriends a colourful Ukrainian, binges on drugs, enters the antiques business with the partner of another of the bombing’s victims and chases the mystery of the painting and his family’s past to Amsterdam.
All being well, the film will kick off shooting early next year. Elgort will next be seen in Billionaire Boys Club and was recently attached to play a young John F. Kennedy in Mayday 109.