Netflix has turned down Scott Frank‘s adaptation of ‘Laughter in the Dark,’ starring Anya Taylor-Joy, as confirmed by novelist and screenwriter Megan Abbott. The film revolves around an art critic who, fascinated by a young aspiring actress, becomes entangled in a scheme to drain him of his wealth with the assistance of her former lover.
According to The New Yorker, Netflix passed on three of Frank’s projects, including an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov‘s ‘Laughter in the Dark.’ Co-written with Abbott.
Speaking to The New Yorker, Abbott said, “We talked about the femme fatale as this character who gets short shrift.” Abbott added, “But really great noir is always toying with that. Scott wanted the female point of view to be foregrounded.”
In 2020, during an interview on The Ringer’s ‘The Watch’ podcast, Frank described the project as a ‘valentine to movies,’ He said, “I’m going to do it as a film noir and a movie within a movie. And it’s a really nasty, wonderful thriller.”
“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.”
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