It would seem that Hollywood is suddenly hot on Zelda Fitzgerald who, as far as I know, has no toys based on her life, and hasn’t been packaged into a Happy Meal, which makes it all the more surprising. Next year, Christina Ricci will play the Jazz Age icon in the Amazon series “Z: The Beginning of Everything,” but that hasn’t stopped two movie projects from building steam. Last week it was announced that Jennifer Lawrence would be the lead in a project being developed and possibly directed by Ron Howard, and now she has some competition coming.
Scarlett Johansson is now attached to play Zelda Fitzgerald in “The Beautiful And The Damned” (a little nod to her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s book “The Beautiful And Damned”). Hanna Weg (“Septembers of Shiraz,” “The Prophet“) has penned the script for the movie that has an advantage over everyone else by having access to sanatorium records that show F. Scott called some of Zelda’s ideas his own. The movie will also have the participation of the Fitzgerald estate, so in theory, the movie will be the most honest depiction of Zelda (or the most managed, depending on how you view things).
All that said, there’s no director yet for the project, and given that Hollywood works in mysterious ways and schedules are always in flux and more, who knows which Zelda Fitzgerald movie will go in front of cameras first. But either way, she’s getting the big screen, A-list treatment, but just don’t forget about Ricci’s TV show which is right around the corner. [THR]