Olivia Wilde is stepping behind the camera for her feature directorial debut. After helming a couple of music videos and a short, the “House” alumna is teaming up with Annapurna Pictures and Gloria Sanchez for “Booksmart,” a comedy starring “Last Man Standing’s” Kaitlyn Dever and “Lady Bird” breakout Beanie Feldstein. Variety broke the news.
The pic follows overachieving BFFs who have an epiphany on the eve of their high school graduation. They realize that they should have spent less time studying and more time partying. “Determined never to fall short of their peers, the girls set out on a mission to cram four years of fun into one night,” the source summarizes.
Frequent collaborators Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins (“The Mayor,” “Black-ish”) penned the script, and Susanna Fogel (“Life Partners”) and Katie Silberman (“Set It Up”) have done revisions.
“TRON: Legacy,” “Drinking Buddies,” and “Meadowland” are among Wilde’s acting credits. She produced the latter, a drama about grieving parents that marked cinematographer Reed Morano’s directorial debut. Morano also served as DP on the film.
“It was thrilling when Reed told me she wanted to shoot the film as well,”
the “Vinyl” actress has said. “It’s something I never would have asked of her. It seemed like a Herculean effort. I also wanted to respect the fact that she was directing a film now.” She added, “People felt, when they saw her hoist the camera on her shoulders the first time and shoot the first scene: ‘That’s now the standard. There’s no bullshit on this set.’ It set a great, badass tone for the crew.”
Wilde has produced a number of other projects, including “Body Team 12,” an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated doc short.
