The Golden Globe
winner is set to play Marita Lorenz in 'Marita,' a pitch by 'American Hustle'
scribe Eric Warren Singer.
After starring
in a film inspired by the life of Miracle Mop creator Joy Mangano, Jennifer
Lawrence is ready to tackle another real-life woman.
The actress, who
received her fourth Oscar nomination last week, is attached to portray Marita
Lorenz in Marita, a hot pitch from Eric Warren Singer, co-writer of American
Hustle.
Sony Pictures,
moving aggressively, picked up the project from the Oscar-nominated scribe in a
competitive situation. Matt Tolmach will produce the romantic spy drama with
Lawrence and Scott Mednick. Andre Rouleau is also producing.
Marita centers
on Lorenz and how she met and began an affair with Cuban leader Fidel Castro in
1959 when she was 19 years old. After living with Castro for a spell, Lorenz
left Cuba and joined anti-communists in the U.S., where she was recruited by
the CIA for an assassination mission. In 1960, she returned to Cuba to carry
out the mission but, according to lore, yielded to love.
(Lorenz had
quite the life, by the way. She also had an affair with a Venezuelan dictator,
claimed to have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and spied
on diplomats for the FBI in the 1970s. She wrote two autobiographies and lives
in Maryland.)
Singer spent
months developing the project, working with Mednick and Rouleau, before
bringing it to Lawrence, with whom he worked on Hustle, and taking it out to
the town.
Sources say the
true-life spy story attracted plenty of interest and bidding from other studios
such as Fox 2000, Warner Bros., Paramount and Annapurna.
Sony is fired up
about the project, hoping to find a director soon with the hopes of releasing a
movie towards the end of 2017, depending on development goes.
Exec Ange
Giannetti will oversee for the studio. Cuba has been heating up as a story
setting and possible shooting location since the embargoes were eased by
President Barack Obama. As The Hollywood Reporter previously reported, Fast
& Furious 8 is hoping to film in the island nation. Additionally, Conan and
House of Lies have both shot there recently.
Lawrence, repped
by CAA, won a Golden Globe for her role as the housewife-turned-inventor in
David O. Russell's Joy, along with receiving an Oscar nomination. The Hunger
Games actress, who will next be seen in X-Men: Apocalypse, is attached to a
slew of other projects. Lawrence is set to star in Darren Aronofsky’s untitled
project for Paramount with Javier Bardem; she is planning to write and star in
a project with her new BFF Amy Schumer; and she is attached to Steven
Spielberg’s film It’s What I Do, the story of a female war photographer.
With the Marita
pickup, Sony is back in business with Lawrence, who recently completed the
studio's sci-fi love drama Passengers.
Along with
writing American Hustle and Red Sparrow, Singer also wrote the script for
2009’s The International. He is repped by UTA and Mark Gochman.
