EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has closed a cope with Sydney Sweeney and is in remaining negotiations with Amanda Seyfried to star within the Hidden Pictures thriller The Housemaid, with the studio tapping Paul Feig to direct. The screenplay is by Rebecca Sonnenshine, primarily based on the bestselling novel by Freida McFadden.
Hidden Pictures’ Todd Lieberman will produce, and the corporate’s Carly Kleinbart Elter will oversee the venture. Feigco’s Feig and Laura Fischer are additionally producing. Sweeney and Seyfried will function govt producers alongside Alex Young and McFadden.
In the movie, Sweeney will play Millie, a struggling girl who's relieved to get a recent begin as a housemaid to Nina (Seyfried) and Andrew, an upscale, rich couple. She quickly learns that the household’s secrets and techniques are way more harmful than her personal.
“I’m thrilled to have The Housemaid join our upcoming slate,” mentioned Adam Fogelson, chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “A great filmmaker and a great cast with a great script from a great book is a terrific place to start. My prior work experiences with Paul and Amanda have been nothing short of spectacular, and Sydney is as talented and compelling as can be.”
The novel has been on the New York Times bestseller listing for greater than a yr, 75 weeks and counting, and on the Amazon bestsellers listing for 98 weeks and counting. It additionally has a record-breaking half-billion pages learn on Kindle and is the No. 2 most-read title for Kindle’s tenth anniversary behind solely the Harry Potter sequence. It has offered extra then 3.6 million copies in English has been translated into 40 languages
“Part of the fun of the book was imagining the cast while we read it, and Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried are perfect for Millie and Nina – they’re both mysterious, nuanced, and incredibly skilled at becoming characters who don’t reveal everything right away,” mentioned Erin Westerman, co-president of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “We’re thrilled to team them with Paul Feig, who we worked with on A Simple Favor and its upcoming sequel and has a proven track record of developing stories with dynamic female leads.”
Chelsea Kujawa and Erin Jones-Wesley are overseeing for Lionsgate. Robert Melnik negotiated the offers for the studio.
Best identified for her Emmy-nominated work on Euphoria and The White Lotus, Sweeney was most just lately seen in Sony’s field workplace hit Anyone But You reverse Glen Powell in addition to the horror thriller Immaculate. Her movie Eden just lately premiered on the Toronto Film Festival. Sweeney is repped by Paradigm and Stewart Brookman and Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman.
Seyfried is coming off her Emmy-winning position within the Hulu sequence The Dropout, the place she performed Elizabeth Holmes. She is repped Innovative and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
Feig simply directed and produced the Amazon movie Jackpot!, a world success having stayed No. 1 worldwide on Amazon for 4 consecutive weeks. His subsequent movie as a director and producer (Feigco) releases in Spring 2025 for Amazon and Lionsgate with A Simple Favor 2, with Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick additionally returning for the follow-up to the 2018 unique. He is represented by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber, Dern.
McFadden is represented by Christina Hogrebe of Jane Rotrosen Agency, Angela Cheng Caplan of Cheng Caplan Company and Allison Binder of Goodman Genow Schenkman Smelkinson + Christopher. Sonnenshine is repped by Circle Management + Production and UTA.
