FILMS
11:37 AM PDT 07/21/2020
by
Borys Kit
,
Olivia Newman will direct, while Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter will produce.
The film adaptation of the best-selling murder mystery novel Where the Crawdads sing has found its director.
Olivia Newman, who wrote and directed the Netflix show First match, will direct the Sony Pictures film adaptation of Delia Owen’s debut novel that has dominated the New York Times Bestseller list since its publication in 2019. It was also the best-selling fiction book on Amazon in all 2019.
Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter are producing through their Hello Sunshine banner for 3000 Pictures, Sony’s signature label.
The story follows Kya, a young woman who is abandoned by her family and left alone to grow up in a swamp outside a small town in North Carolina. After becoming a respected author, publishing reference books on the local flora and fauna of her swamp, she is charged with the murder of her ex-boyfriend, the city’s golden boy. The story is both a crime thriller and a coming-of-age story that intertwines two timelines.
Oscar nominee Savage South beasts Lucy Alibar is writing the script. Sources say Newman will oversee a rewrite and direct the project.
Published by GP Putnam’s Son in August 2018, Witherspoon selected the book as his book club’s choice in September 2018. He then took off, spending 97 weeks at The New York Times It is # 1 in hardcover fiction and # 1 in audio, and has sold over 7 million copies worldwide.
Elizabeth Gabler, Erin Siminoff and Aislinn Dunster supervise 3,000 images.
The project is a great achievement for Newman, who made his film debut with First match, The 2018 broadcast sports drama had a budget of just over $ 1 million and focused on a Brooklyn teenager who decides to join the children’s wrestling team. The drama won the Audience Award for best competing narrative feature film and the LUNA Gamechanger Award for best female director of a first feature film. She has also directed a handful of network series episodes. FBI and Chicago Fire and Chicago PD.
Newman was also part of the Sundance / Universal Fellowship program and part of NBC’s inaugural Female Forward Initiative. She is represented by WME, Grandview, and Jackoway Austen.
