EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has closed a deal with Sydney Sweeney and is in final negotiations with Amanda Seyfried to star in the Hidden Pictures thriller The Housemaid, with the studio tapping Paul Feig to direct. The screenplay is by Rebecca Sonnenshine, based on the bestselling novel by Freida McFadden.
Hidden Pictures’ Todd Lieberman will produce, and the company’s Carly Kleinbart Elter will oversee the project. Feigco’s Feig and Laura Fischer are also producing. Sweeney and Seyfried will serve as executive producers alongside Alex Young and McFadden.
In the film, Sweeney will play Millie, a struggling woman who is relieved to get a fresh start as a housemaid to Nina (Seyfried) and Andrew, an upscale, wealthy couple. She soon learns that the family’s secrets are far more dangerous than her own.
“I’m thrilled to have The Housemaid join our upcoming slate,” said Adam Fogelson, chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “A great filmmaker and a great cast with a great script from a great book is a terrific place to start. My prior work experiences with Paul and Amanda have been nothing short of spectacular, and Sydney is as talented and compelling as can be.”
The novel has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, 75 weeks and counting, and on the Amazon bestsellers list for 98 weeks and counting. It also has a record-breaking half-billion pages read on Kindle and is the No. 2 most-read title for Kindle’s 10th anniversary behind only the Harry Potter series. It has sold more then 3.6 million copies in English has been translated into 40 languages
“Part of the fun of the book was imagining the cast while we read it, and Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried are perfect for Millie and Nina – they’re both mysterious, nuanced, and incredibly skilled at becoming characters who don’t reveal everything right away,” said Erin Westerman, co-president of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “We’re thrilled to team them with Paul Feig, who we worked with on A Simple Favor and its upcoming sequel and has a proven track record of developing stories with dynamic female leads.”
Chelsea Kujawa and Erin Jones-Wesley are overseeing for Lionsgate. Robert Melnik negotiated the deals for the studio.
Best known for her Emmy-nominated work on Euphoria and The White Lotus, Sweeney was most recently seen in Sony’s box office hit Anyone But You opposite Glen Powell as well as the horror thriller Immaculate. Her film Eden recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Sweeney is repped by Paradigm and Stewart Brookman and Hansen Jacobson Teller Hoberman.
Seyfried is coming off her Emmy-winning role in the Hulu series The Dropout, where she played Elizabeth Holmes. She is repped Innovative and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
Feig just directed and produced the Amazon film Jackpot!, a global success having stayed No. 1 worldwide on Amazon for four consecutive weeks. His next film as a director and producer (Feigco) releases in Spring 2025 for Amazon and Lionsgate with A Simple Favor 2, with Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick also returning for the follow-up to the 2018 original. He is represented by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber, Dern.
McFadden is represented by Christina Hogrebe of Jane Rotrosen Agency, Angela Cheng Caplan of Cheng Caplan Company and Allison Binder of Goodman Genow Schenkman Smelkinson + Christopher. Sonnenshine is repped by Circle Management + Production and UTA.
