St. Vincent to direct female version of The Picture of Dorian Gray

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Honestly, I'm primarily familiar with the character of Dorian Gray from Reeve Carney's portrayal of him on the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, but the character has been around ever since Oscar Wilde's "philosophical novel" THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY was first published in 1890. Over the last 100+ years, Wilde's story has been adapted for screens big and small a couple dozen times, and now it's about to get a new adaptation – with a gender swap twist.

Musician St. Vincent (real name Annie Clark), who made her directorial debut with the "The Birthday Cake" segment of the horror anthology XX, will be taking the helm of the latest version of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY for Lionsgate.

Clark will be working from a screenplay by David Birke, who wrote Paul Verhoeven's ELLE and the upcoming horror film SLENDER MAN. Wilde's novel tells the story of 

a hedonistic man whose self-portrait ages while he stays eternally young.

In this version, Dorian Gray will be a woman.

I don't know much about Dorian Gray, but this does seem to be a project that will be worth keeping an eye on.