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There was a lot of fuss made when Catherine Hardwicke was ousted from the Twilight franchise after delivering a hit with the first installment. In the years since, she’s made some forgettable features. Seriously, I literally have no recollection of Red Riding Hood nor Plush even existing. Her latest, Miss You Already, is supposed to arrive this year, and maybe it will and likewise come and go without me noticing. But I’m sure I’ll have to pay attention to her next effort, another hot YA adaptation titled Love Letters to the Dead.
Both The Wrap and The Hollywood Reporter are claiming the exclusive on this announcement, so I’ll take your pick of the links. Either way, the news is that Hardwicke is in talks to direct the teen movie, which involves a girl communicating with dead celebrities, including Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and Heath Ledger. Unfortunately, they’re not communicating back nor showing up as undead characters. She’s just, as the title suggests, writing love letters to these famous people who died too young.
Something so literary doesn’t sound like it will translate well to the big screen, so maybe Hardwicke can visualize the one-sided correspondence somehow while also casting ghosts of the celebs, just because. Or she can find a way to excise all mention of Cobain and the rest, similar to how the great About a Boy ignored the Nirvana frontman’s significance from the book. Well, maybe it’s not Hardwicke’s job, since “Love Letters to the Dead” author Ava Dellaira has already taken care of adapting duties herself.
Hardwicke apparently has no hard feelings about losing out on the Twilight sequels, as she’s reuniting with producers Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen, who have since also had success with YA movies The Fault in Our Stars and The Maze Runner. I guess this one has no sequel, so there’s no chance of history repeating itself.