Michelle Pfeiffer, Tracy Letts and Academy Award-nominee Lucas Hedges have signed on to star in the surrealist comedy “French Exit,” based on the international best-selling book by Patrick deWitt.
DeWitt (“The Sisters Brothers”) adapted his novel for the big screen, and Azazel Jacobs (“The Lovers”) is set to direct the film.
The film will follow 60-year-old penniless Manhattan socialite Frances Price (Pfeiffer), whose plan it was “to die before the money ran out,” but things didn’t go as planned. Price’s husband Franklin has been dead for 20 years and with his vast inheritance gone, she cashes in the last of her possessions and resolves to live out her twilight days anonymously in a modest apartment in Paris, accompanied by her directionless son, Malcolm (Hedges), and the embodiment of Franklin in the form of “Small Frank” (Letts), the family cat.
DeWitt’s novel was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Pfeiffer most recently starred in Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express.” The Oscar nominee will next be seen opposite Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning in Disney’s “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.”
Prior to “French Exit,” Jacobs wrote and directed “The Lovers,” starring Debra Winger and Tracy Letts, as well as “Terri,” which was also written by deWitt.
Thorsten Schumacher’s Rocket Science is financing and producing the film, with Elevation Pictures also producing. Rocket Science and Wild Bunch are handling international sales, beginning in Cannes. CAA Media Finance is representing the U.S. rights.
Rocket Science’s slate includes Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” set to star Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen and Seth Rogen, as well as Gary Shore’s “Queen Mary” and Jonathan Jakubowicz’s “Resistance,” starring Jesse Eisenberg.
Pfeiffer is represented by CAA and Management 360. Hedges is repped by CAA and Anonymous Content. Letts is repped by Innovative Artists. Jacobs is repped by CAA and Novo. DeWitt is repped by Foundry Literary Media and Novo.