Steven Spielberg’s production company, Amblin Partners, has announced that Niki Caro has signed on to direct a film adaptation of Jess Walter’s Kirkus-starred 2012 novel, Beautiful Ruins.
The New Zealand director most recently helmed the live-action Disney film Mulan, which has yet to be released in theaters, due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it’s currently slated for August 21. She also directed a 2017 movie version of Diane Ackerman’s 2007 nonfiction book, The Zookeeper’s Wife, starring Jessica Chastain, and a well-received 2002 adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s novel, The Whale Rider. In 2018, she won a Directors Guild of America Award for her work on an episode of the Netflix series Anne with an E.
Walter’s novel tells a sprawling tale of the Hollywood film industry that opens in 1962 in Italy, where a pregnant American starlet named Dee Moray is being kept out of sight at a hotel, run by an Italian named Pasquale, to avoid a celebrity scandal; there, she’s watched over by movie-studio functionary Michael Deane. As Kirkus’ review notes, “the story sprays out in multiple directions, shifting time and perspective to follow Deane’s evolution into a Robert Evans–style mogul; Dee’s hapless aging-punk son; an alcoholic World War II vet who settles into Pasquale’s hotel to peck away at a novel; and a young screenwriter eagerly pitching a dour movie about the Donner Party.”
The upcoming movie version may simplify Walter’s story somewhat. The description in Amblin’s new release only mentions the 1962 storyline and another set 50 years later in Hollywood, where “a jaded assistant to a once-powerhouse producer gets caught up in the magic of the Italian’s story, and takes it upon herself to find a happy ending.”
No casting news or prospective release date for the film has yet been announced.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
