She may be a superhero who can summon thunder and lightning but sometimes a girl just wants to wear pretty shoes. Hence the news this morning that Halle Berry has signed up for **Shoe Addicts Anonymous, based on the novel by Beth Harbison.
An unashamed "beach read" published in 2007, Shoe Addicts is the story of four women who meet weekly for shoe-swapping parties. There's a senator's trophy wife; an overweight phone-sex operator; a society nanny (who actually isn't interested in footwear but just wants to get out of the house); and the debt-ridden Lorna, who places the internet ad that the rest respond to. Shoe Addicts Anonymous was followed a year later by Secrets of a Shoe Addict, so there's series potential, folks. Harbison is also the author of something called Thin, Rich and Pretty. You can see where this might be headed.
We'd have guessed that Berry would be Lorna, who seems to be essentially the central character of the four. But Deadline peg her as "an agorophobe who feeds her addiction with online shoe purchases" which makes her Phone-Sex Girl. Is Berry going to pile on some pounds? Or will Kristen Buckley and Brian Regan's script (they were the pair behind How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days) do some re-jigging of the source?
Whatever, it all goes to show that, despite the critical drubbing dished out to Sex and the City 2, the cha-ching of the ticket registers proves that there's still life in the consumerist chick-flick. But hey, maybe this'll be one for foot fetishists too. Paul Weiland (Made of Honour, Blackadder, Mr Bean) is directing, and shooting starts before the autumn.