Amy Adams’ ‘Nightbitch’ Finds Hulu Home: Marielle Heller to Direct, Searchlight to Release Suburb Thriller
Samantha Bergeson
Two years after Amy Adams‘ production company Bond Group, along with Annapurna, acquired the rights to the novel “Nightbitch,” the film is finally howling straight ahead.
Searchlight Pictures has officially acquired the neo-horror thriller, already written and soon to be directed by Marielle Heller. Annapurna will produce the film, which is based on Rachel Yoder’s fall 2021 debut novel of the same name. The film will be released on Hulu, with other release plans to follow, per Searchlight.
“Nightbitch” tells the story of a stay-at-home mother (six-time Oscar nominee Adams) who begins to embrace the inherent feral power that comes with being a parent. When her husband travels for work, the unnamed lead character is isolated in the suburbs with only her two-year-old son for company. Soon, she starts to become convinced that she’s slowly turning into a canine and eventually seeks help to hide her feral alter ego from a mommy support group.
The film is currently in pre-production and will start shooting in Los Angeles this fall. “Nightbitch” will stream as a Hulu Original in the U.S.
Heller is acclaimed for her directing skills, including on feature films like “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” As an actress, Heller famously stole scenes as Anya Taylor-Joy’s adoptive mother in “Queen’s Gambit.”
Adams was last seen in 2021’s “The Woman in the Window,” originally set up at Fox but sold to Netflix amid pandemic delays and after Disney’s acquisition of Fox and its subsidiaries, including Searchlight. She also starred in the musical adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen.”
In an official statement, Heller called adapting the novel “a dream come true,” adding, “Rachel Yoder‘s book took my breath away. I haven’t felt this way about a book since I read ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ many years ago. Rachel’s darkly hilarious tale of motherhood and rage made me feel seen. And adapting it with Amy Adams in mind has been the thing that has kept me going through the pandemic.”
Annapurna’s Megan Ellison, writer/director Heller, star Adams, Anne Carey, Stacy O’Neil, Christina Oh, Adam Paulsen, and Sue Naegle are producing “Nightbitch,” with Sammy Scher and Havilah Brewster executive producing.
Heller and Brewster will produce via their Defiant by Nature production banner; Adams and O’Neil via their Bond Group production banner; Carey via her Archer Gray production banner.
Adams’ Bond Group production optioned the rights to the novel in 2020 before the book was released the following year. This is Adams’ fourth collaboration with Annapurna, following “The Master,” “American Hustle,” and “Vice,” which all landed her Oscar nominations, as well as “Her.”
Searchlight Presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield confirmed “Nightbitch” will no doubt be a “provocative film.”
