According to The Film Stage (via Production Weekly), Oscar nominee Yorgos Lanthimos is setting up his next project for Searchlight Pictures with the development of the film adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel titled Poor Things, which is a reimagination of the classic Frankenstein story. This project will also see Oscar winner Emma Stone reuniting with Lanthimos, who previously worked together on 2018’s The Favourite.
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First published in 1992, Poor Things is a Victorian-set novel that will feature Emma Stone as Bella Baxter – a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant. It was also inspired by Mary Shelly’s classic gothic novel Frankenstein.
Pick up a copy of the novel here!
The film’s official synopsis reads: “Ostensibly the memoirs of late-19th-century Glasgow physician Archibald McCandless, the narrative follows the bizarre life of oversexed, volatile Bella Baxter, an emancipated woman, and a female Frankenstein. Bella is not her real name; as Victorian Blessington, she drowned herself to escape her abusive husband, but a surgeon removed the brain from the fetus she was carrying and placed it in her skull, resuscitating her. The revived Bella has the mental age of a child. Engaged to marry McCandless, she chloroforms him and runs off with a shady lawyer who takes her on a whirlwind adventure, hopping from Alexandria to Odessa to a Parisian brothel. As her brain matures, Bella develops a social conscience, but her rescheduled nuptials to Archie are cut short when she is recognized as Victoria by her lawful husband, Gen. Sir Aubrey Blessington.”
The script for the film is being adapted by Lanthimos and Tony McNamara, with whom he also previously worked on Lanthimos’ Oscar-nominated period drama and shared a Best Original Screenplay nomination with Deborah Davis. Production is scheduled to begin this year in the fall.
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Besides The Favourite, Stone is also best known for her acclaimed performances in Easy A, Birdman, La La Land, and Battle of the Sexes. She will next be seen in Disney’s live-action film titled Cruella which centers around the iconic 101 Dalmatian villain Cruella de Vil.
