Blake Lively‘s next project will see her teaming up with Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody for a feature adaptation of Lady Killer — the comic book series by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich which has been published by Dark Horse Comics since 2015.
The comic books are set in the 1950s and centre around Josie Schuller, who is a seemingly perfect housewife by day and a killer for hire by night. Jones, who provides the artwork for the series, drew inspiration from a ’50s advertisements in creating Lady Killer which won an Eisner Award in 2016.
“The idea came from a love of vintage advertising and illustration from the 1940s through the 1960s,” Jones said in a 2015 interview. “I really just wanted to create a story that would allow me to play in that world. I also grew up in a very traditional home where the women had very defined roles. Because of that, I have a lot of sympathy for a character that is forced to balance a dual nature.”
The plan is for Lively to play Schuller, while Cody will pen the script. In addition to having won the Oscar for writing Juno, Cody was also nominated for a Tony Award for best book of a musical for Jagged Little Pill, based on the songs by Alanis Morissette.
Lively, meanwhile, has been enjoying a handful of roles in which she plays a beguiling femme fatale. In 2018’s A Simple Favor, she played a housewife with a mysterious past. In 2020’s The Rhythm Section she played a grieving woman who sets out for revenge after discovering that the plane crash that killed her family was a terrorist attack. The actress will also produce the series along with Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg and Kate Vorhoff.
Lady Killer will be created under the banner of Dark Horse Entertainment, the production house responsible for the action-comedy series Umbrella Academy which stars Elliot Page as Vanya, Tom Hopper as Luther, David Castañeda as Diego, Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison, Robert Sheehan as Klaus, Aidan Gallagher as Number Five, Justin H. Min as Ben, Ritu Arya as Lily, and Colm Feore as Reginald Hargreeves.
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