Netflix Adapting The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Into New Movie

One of the biggest novels in recent years is officially headed to Netflix. On Thursday, it was announced that the streaming service will be adapting The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo into a feature film, with Liz Tigelaar (Little Fires Everywhere, Life Unexpected) adapting. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was penned by Taylor Jenkins Reid, who has also written the smash hits Daisy Jones & The Six and Malibu Rising. Reid is going to executive produce the projects, alongside Margaret Chernin, Liza Chasin, and Brad Mendelsohn.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo follows reclusive Hollywood legend Evelyn Hugo, who chooses an unknown reporter, Monique Grant, to tell her life story. Evelyn recounts her time in the Golden Age of Hollywood, her rise to fame, and her seven marriages – revealing stunning secrets and lies. But through it all one question remains: Why has she chosen Monique for her final confession?

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has been a bonafide hit since it was published in 2017, most recently thanks to the “BookTok” corner of TikTok, with hashtags and topics surrounding the novel gaining millions o views. The book recently spent 54 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller Paperback list.

“I just decided that what I wanted to do was tell a heartbreakingly honest story, and you might like Evelyn and you might not like her,” Reid explained in a 2017 interview with PopSugar. “My guess is most people, regardless of whether they like her or not, will respect her. That’s another thing that, as I get older, I’m realizing can be diametrically opposed when it comes to being a woman. Being likable and being respected are sometimes something we have to choose between. As I grow as a person, I’m trying to err towards the latter, that I would rather be respected than liked, and I think my characters are going in that direction.”

“I know there are people that are going to be very put off by the things that Evelyn does,” Reid continued. “I wrote her with the intention to be honest and not the intention to be liked. I’m nervous with the book out there; I know that it’s a different book than anything I’ve ever written. Evelyn and the other main character, Monique, both struggle at different times to come into their own and demand to be respected and get their due and see themselves as powerful women. I’m writing about that because I’m going through that, because I’m trying to become that. My hope is that other women are in that same place that I am, and that when they see these women doing it, they feel like they can do it. Like me, like the book, like Evelyn, or not, but hopefully, it starts a conversation.”

An adaptation of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has been in the works in some capacity since 2019, with Freeform and Fox 21 Television Studios originally planning to develop it. That adaptation would have been written by Reid with Jennifer Beals and The L Word‘s Ilene Chaiken producing, but fell out when Freeform no longer owned the rights to the project in 2021.

h/t: Deadline