Yahoo News Searchlight Teams With Amy Adams, Annapurna for Neo-Horror ‘Nightbitch’
After two years of development, Nightbitch with Amy Adams is ready to howl.
Searchlight has picked up the worldwide rights on the feature project, teaming up with Annapurna on the adaptation of the Rachel Yoder novel, the studio arm announced Thursday.
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Adams is starring in the project, which is being written by, and will be directed by, Marielle Heller, the actress-turned-filmmaker behind 2015’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Melissa McCarthy art-forgery dramedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? A September shoot in Los Angeles is being eyed, with the feature to stream on Hulu.
Yoder’s book, published July 2021 by Doubleday Books, tells of a woman who finds herself in a mind-bending and energy-sapping routine of raising a toddler in a suburban home while her husband is on lengthy business trips. According to Searchlight, the woman slowly embraces the feral power deeply rooted in motherhood, as she becomes increasingly aware of the bizarre and undeniable signs that she may be turning into a canine.
The book looked at the pressure women feel to be modern mothers, and the feature project is described as being a darkly comic neo-horror. Annapurna picked up the rights to the book in July 2020 and was developing it as a vehicle for Adams, later bringing on Heller.
Producing are Megan Ellison, Anne Carey (who produced Heller’s Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Stacy O’Neil, Christina Oh, Adam Paulsen and Sue Naegle, as well as Heller and Adams. Heller is producing via her Defiant by Nature production banner, Adams and O’Neil via their Bond Group company, and Carey via her Archer Gray shingle.
Sammy Scher and Havilah Brewster are executive producing.
“Rachel Yoder‘s book took my breath away,” said Heller in a statement. “I haven’t felt this way about a book since I read The Diary of a Teenage Girl many years ago. Rachel darkly hilarious tale of motherhood and rage made me feel seen. And adapting it with Amy Adams in mind has been the thing that has kept me going through the pandemic.”
Heller last directed the 2019 Mister Rogers drama, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which earned Tom Hanks an Oscar nomination. She worked with Searchlight once before, with the company distributing her Can You Ever Forgive Me? Heller is repped by UTA and Johnson Shapiro.
Adams last year starred in Universal’s adaptation of Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, as well as thriller The Woman in the Window. She next stars in Disenchanted, the sequel to Disney’s 2007 hit Enchanted. Adams is repped by WME, Linden Entertainment and Sloane Offer.
Yoder is repped by CAA and Monika Woods of Triangle House Literary.
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