EXCLUSIVE: Netflix and Jennifer Lopez are building on their strong partnership for the superstar’s next project with plans to team her with an iconic director. Sources tell Deadline that Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis has come on to direct an adaptation of The Last Mrs. Parrish with Lopez on board to star.
The film is in development with Andrea Berloff and Oscar-nominee John Gatins penning the script. This marks a reunion for Zemeckis and Gatins, who worked together on the Oscar-nominated Denzel Washington drama Flight.
Liza Chasin is producing for 3dot Productions along with Molly Sims for Something Happy Productions, and Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina for Nuyorican Productions. Margaret Chernin of 3dot Productions will exec produce as will Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine, Jack Rapke and Derek Hogue.
Based on the Liv Constantine novel, the story follows a con artist (Lopez) who targets a wealthy couple — the Parrishes — as her next victims. She infiltrates the pair by befriending the wife and seducing the husband, with the master plan of becoming the next Mrs. Parrish, only to discover that the wife’s life is far more complicated than she could have imagined.
The novel was a Reese Witherspoon’s book club pick, has sold more than a million copies and been published in about three dozen countries.
Lopez and Netflix have had a strong partnership that includes action thriller The Mother and sci-fi epic Atlas, and this project gives her another edgy project to sink her teeth into. Lopez has been working with prolific directors as of late, including Bill Condon, who directed her Sundance pic Kiss of the Spider Woman. That film will get an awards-season release in theaters in the fall..
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While Zemeckis long list of classics blockbusters include the Back to the Future franchise, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cast Away and the Oscar-winning Forrest Gump, this film brings him back to the those adult thrillers like What Lies Beneath and Allied that audiences also have loved over the years.
Zemeckis his latest directorial effort was Here for Sony Pictures Studios and Miramax, which reunited him with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. An intimate story taking place in one location over the span of generations, the film premiered at the 2024 AFI Festival and closed out the 2024 60th Anniversary of the Chicago Film Festival, where Zemeckis received the Festival’s Founder’s Award.
The Last Mrs. Parrish falls under Chasin’s creative partnership with Netflix, which sees her produce feature films via her shingle, 3dot Productions. The latest film from the partnership, The Life List starring Sofia Carson, has spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Netflix Global Top 10 Films List (English). It also falls under the creative partnership between Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions and Netflix, where Lopez, producing partner Goldsmith-Thomas and longtime manager Benny Medina are producing a slate of films, TV series, scripted and unscripted content, with an emphasis on projects that support diverse female actors, writers and filmmakers.
