Perhaps there’s a case to be made that Ron Howard might be one of the more underrated directors working at the moment. He may not be the flashiest, or the most cinephile approved, but his talents recall old school Hollywood directors like Michael Curtiz who could shift seamlessly from genre to genre with accomplished ease. His recent trio of pictures paint a pretty convincing case, finding the director moving from the racetrack biopic "Rush," to the upcoming watery adventure "In The Heart Of The Sea," and next year, delivering another high gloss blockbuster with "Inferno." And now, once again, he’s pivoting to something different.
Deadline reports that Howard will helm an adaptation of the upcoming book "The Girl Before." Penned by J.P. Delaney (apparently the pseudonym of Tom Strong), the Hitchcock-esque story follows a woman who rents a dream house only to discover the previous tenant met a mysterious end, and that she could be next.
Okay, even with my defense of Howard, I have to say that logline seems a bit blasé, but given that there was a bidding war for the book long before its August 2016 publish date (with Universal landing the rights), perhaps there’s much more meat to the material. Certainly, it’s one to watch for as the book is already building buzz before it has even hit the shelves.