Michelle Ashford is taking “City of Girls” to the big screen. The “Masters of Sex” creator is on board to adapt Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling novel. A press release confirmed the news.
Released earlier this June, “City of Girls” is set in 1940s amidst “the sparkling world of dazzling artistes, glamorous showgirls, and oversized theater personalities.” The story centers on Vivian, a 19-year-old who gets kicked out of school and sent New York to live with her aunt, a lesbian who runs a theater troupe. Vivian “makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal” and turns “her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand.”
Sue Kroll is producing the pic through her Kroll & Co. Entertainment banner.
No word on a director yet.
“I’m thrilled to be working with the inimitable Sue Kroll and the brilliant Michelle Ashford on the adaptation of my novel,” said Gilbert. “More than any book I’ve ever written, ‘City of Girls’ always felt like it wanted to be a movie. The entire time I was writing the novel, I was picturing it on the big screen. Something about the glittering and glamorous sex-appeal of the New York City theater world in the 1940s just demands to be brought to life in the most vivid and shining way. The fact that this will be a female-led production makes me happier still, because ‘City of Girls’ was always meant to be a story for women, and about women,” she emphasized. “My characters could not be in better hands with Kroll and Ashford. I’m over the moon.”
Ashford received an Emmy nod for co-writing HBO miniseries “The Pacific.” She created “Masters of Sex,” which ran for four seasons on Showtime. Ashford penned the screenplay for “Operation Mincemeat,” a WWII-set feature about two intelligence officers who outwit German troops that’s currently in pre-production. Kelly Macdonald and Colin Firth star.
Gilbert’s 2006 memoir “Eat Pray Love” served as the inspiration for the 2010 film of the same name. The Julia Roberts-starrer took in over $204 million worldwide.
