Jennifer Lawrence to Star in Adaptation of Graphic Novel Why Don't You Love Me?

The movie will have both personal and cosmic stakes for a struggling couple. Lawrence will also produce.

A24 has tapped Jennifer Lawrence to headline a new movie based on Paul B. Rainey's graphic novel Why Don't You Love Me?. The movie, which will be adapted by screenwriter Robert Funke (On Becoming a God in Central Florida), centers on a couple whose troubled marriage seems to reflect a general unease about the nature of the universe around them. A24 and Apple Studios recently announced that Lawrence would star in the murder mystery The Wives, which she will also produce. Lawrence will also star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's new Frank Sinatra biopic.

No one has yet been cast to star as Lawrence's husband. Lawrence will serve as producer for Why Don't You Love Me? alongside Ciarrocchi for Excellent Cadaver, Ari Aster, Lars Knudsen, and Emily Hildner for Square Peg, and A24 (per Deadline, who first announced the deal). Rainey will serve as executive producer.

This is the latest in a series of collaborations between Lawrence and Apple, who also distributed Causeway (with A24) and the documentary Bread & Roses, which Lawrence produced.

Jennifer Lawrence first rose to fame when she was nominated for an Academy Award for Winter's Bone in 2011, and she quickly shot to global movie star status after starring as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games in 2012. Lawrence reprised the role in three more films, and went on to vary her career between big, crowd-pleasing roles and more critically-acclaimed movies like American Hustle and Mother!. She also starred in Fox's revival of the X-Men franchise, appearing as Mystique in four movies between 2011 and 2019.

Here's the official synopsis for No Hard Feelings, now streaming on Netflix, for which Lawrence earned her most recent Golden Globe Award nomination:

"Maddie thinks she's found the answer to her financial troubles when she discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to "date" their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, and bring him out of his shell before he leaves for college. But awkward Percy proves to be a real challenge, and time is running out. She has one summer to make him a man or lose it all."

The film is directed by Gene Stupnitsky, who co-wrote the script with John Phillips. Lawrence stars alongside Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Natalie Morales, Scott MacArthur, and Matthew Broderick. Alex Saks, Naomi Odenkirk, Marc Provissiero, Justin Ciarrocch, and Jennifer Lawrence produced the film.