According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anne Hathaway is in talks to star in Warner Bros. big screen adaptation of the popular children’s series Sesame Street. Apparently, the actress is the studio’s first choice to star in the film and that an offer is already on the table.
Hathaway is an Academy-Award winning actress who has starred in such blockbusters as The Dark Knight Rises and the recent Ocean’s 8. She will next be seen in the upcoming thriller Serenity.
Portlandia director and co-creator Jonathan Krisel (Baskets, Kroll Show) will be directing the live-action Sesame Street musical based on Sesame Street, an educational series that premiered in 1969 on PBS and was created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morriset. The show features a combination of live-action and puppetry, as well as animation. It is best known as the home of Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, and Elmo, all created by Jim Henson.
The Sesame Street movie is being produced by Oscar nominee Shawn Levy (Arrival) alongside Michael Aguilar (Kidding). Krisel will be directing from a script penned by Chris Galletta, who wrote the most recent draft. Mike Rosolio wrote the first draft of the script. Sesame Workshop holds the right to the series and will be involved with project development.
Levy has been working on the movie since 2012 when 20th Century Fox previously held the rights to the big screen project. In 2015, Sesame Workshop signed a five-season deal with HBO and Warner Bros. began working on a film companion to the series.
Sesame Street has come to the big screen twice before: in 1985 with Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird and in 1999 with Elmo in Grouchland. The latest Sesame Street movie serves as Krisel’s first major studio movie after spending several years on the Emmy Award-winning series Portlandia.
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