In recent years, Reese Witherspoon has forged a real reputation for taking hit novels and turning them into equally successful movies and TV series via Hello Sunshine, the production company she co-founded. After adapting the likes of Wild and Gone Girl (under the Pacific Standard banner) and later Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere, Witherspoon has now found another buzzworthy novel to bring to the screen – along with co-producer Lauren Neustadter, she’s set to make a feature film from Delia Owens’ celebrated novel Where The Crawdads Sing, of which she was an early champion in her online book club.
The book – about Kya, a young girl in North Carolina who is forced to raise herself in the early ‘50s, before being accused of a murder in her teenage years – is part coming-of-age story and part murder mystery and has been a recent bestseller, and the film is already attracting plenty of talent. Olivia Newman, behind acclaimed Netflix wrestling drama First Match, has signed on to direct the film, with a screenplay adapted by Beasts Of The Southern Wild writer Lucy Alibar. And given how successfully Witherspoon brought the likes of Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere to TV, there’s hope that this could be another book-to-screen adaptation done right.
There’s no word on casting yet, but with the project beginning to pick up steam, expect news on that in the coming weeks and months – though when exactly production will be able to begin in the midst of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic remains to be seen.