The Netflix streaming service has a new film chief in Dan Lin – and one of the first projects Lin has greenlit at the streamer is an adaptation of author Ruth Ware’s bestselling 2016 thriller novel The Woman in Cabin 10, which has Keira Knightley attached to star in it as the titular woman! Simon Stone, who previously directed The Dig for Netflix, will be directing the film from a screenplay by Snake Eyes writers Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse (with Stone handling script revisions himself).
Knightley will be playing a travel journalist assigned to cover the launch of a luxury yacht. When she witnesses a passenger tossed overboard in the dead of night, no one believes her story as all on the ship have been accounted for. Doggedly she searches for answers, putting her own life in danger as the boat barrels through the desolate North Sea.
A description of Ware’s novel (you can pick up a copy at THIS LINK) provides some more information: In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: The cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can describe only as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for – and so the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong. With surprising twists, spine-tingling turns, and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another taut and intense listen in The Woman in Cabin 10 – one that will leave even the most sure-footed listener restlessly uneasy long after the last minute ends.
Variety notes that Sister, the production company co-founded by Elizabeth Murdoch and Jane Featherstone and led by CEO Cindy Holland, is producing the film with Debra Hayward, while Sister’s Ilda Diffley serves as executive producer.
I have had some of Ruth Ware’s work recommended to me, but I haven’t gotten around to reading any of her books yet, so I’m not familiar with The Woman in Cabin 10 – but the description sounds interesting enough that I’m definitely going to be reading the book before the film adaptation reaches Netflix.
Have you read The Woman in Cabin 10? What do you think of Keira Knightley signing on to star in the Netflix adaptation? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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