Jennifer Lawrence is gearing up to play Jazz Age icon Zelda Fitzgerald.
The drama, which is currently titled Zelda, is being developed by Ron Howard (Inferno), who is eyeing it as a potential directing vehicle.
The project reteams Lawrence with Allison Shearmur, who, as a former Lionsgate executive, worked with the actress when she made her megastar turn as the lead in The Hunger Games. Shearmur is producing the untitled project with Brian Oliver, whose Hacksaw Ridge is earning awards-season buzz. Lawrence and producing partner Justine Ciarrocchi also will serve as producers.
Based on a screenplay by Emma Frost (The White Queen), the story centers on Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his indispensable muse and fiercest competitor. Desperate to define herself through her own art, the film explores the question: Can love exist between creative equals? Born in Montgomery, Ala., Zelda Fitzgerald was dubbed by her husband as “the first American Flapper,” but her life descended into madness (she was diagnosed with schizophrenia).
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The filmmakers optioned Nancy Milford’s best-selling biography Zelda, which served as the inspiration for the screenplay.
Oliver’s Cross Creek Pictures, whose other recent films include Black Mass and the upcoming Tom Cruise film Mena, is in talks to finance and produce the movie.
As a producer, Shearmur is becoming a force in the area of female-led tentpoles, having produced Disney’s live-action Cinderella and the upcoming Felicity Jones-led Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. She also is an executive producer on the new Power Rangers film and the highly anticipated ABC musical event Dirty Dancing.
Lawrence will next be seen in Sony’s Passengers, which opens Dec. 21. She most recently starred in David O. Russell’s Joy, for which she received her fourth Oscar nomination.
Lawrence, Howard and Shearmur are repped by CAA.
Frost is repped by WME and The Writers Company in the U.K.
