EXCLUSIVE: Netflix and Jennifer Lopez are building on their strong partnership for the superstar’s next project, with plans to team her with an iconic director. Sources tell Deadline that Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis has come on to direct an adaptation of The Last Mrs. Parrish, with Lopez on board to star.
The film is in development with Oscar-nominee Andrea Berloff and Oscar nominee John Gatins penning the script. This marks a reunion for Zemeckis and Gatins, who worked together on the Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington drama Flight.
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Liza Chasin is producing for 3dot Productions along with Molly Sims for Something Happy Productions, and Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina for Nuyorican Productions. Margaret Chernin of 3dot will exec produce as will Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine, Jack Rapke and Derek Hogue.
Based on the Liv Constantine novel, the story follows a con artist (Lopez) who targets a wealthy couple — the Parrishes — as her next victims. She infiltrates the pair by befriending the wife and seducing the husband, with the master plan of becoming the next Mrs. Parrish, only to discover that the wife’s life is far more complicated than she could have imagined.
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The 2018 novel was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, has sold more than 1 million copies and been published in about three dozen countries.
Lopez and Netflix have had a strong partnership that includes action thriller The Mother and sci-fi epic Atlas, and Last Mrs. Parrish gives her another edgy project to sink her teeth into. Lopez has been working with prolific directors of late including Bill Condon, who directed her Sundance pic Kiss of the Spider Woman. That film will get an awards-season release in theaters in the fall..
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While Zemeckis’ long list of blockbusters include the Back to the Future franchise, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cast Away and the Oscar-winning Forrest Gump, this film brings him back to his adult thrillers like What Lies Beneath and Allied.
Zemeckis’ latest directorial effort was last year’s Here for Sony Pictures and Miramax that reunited him with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. An intimate story taking place in one location over the span of generations, the film premiered at AFI Fest and closed out the Chicago Film Festival, where Zemeckis received the festival’s Founder’s Award.
The Last Mrs. Parrish falls under Chasin’s creative partnership with Netflix, which sees her produce feature films via her shingle 3dot. The latest film from the partnership, The Life List starring Sofia Carson, has spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Netflix Global Top 10 Films List (English). It also falls under the creative partnership between Lopez’s Nuyorican and Netflix, where Lopez, producing partner Goldsmith-Thomas and longtime manager Benny Medina are producing a slate of films, TV series, scripted and unscripted content, with an emphasis on projects that support diverse female actors, writers and filmmakers.
