Like Gwyneth Paltrow before her, Julia Stiles is looking to fill the shoes of the the novelist and American poet Sylvia Plath. Plum and Stiles purchased the project from StudioCanal – Plum Pictures will produce in association with Killer Films.
While Paltrow’s Sylvia directed by Christine Jeffs focused on the relationship aspects with her husband British poet Laureate Ted Hughes, this might peer into the author's alter-ego of sorts as it will be based and named after her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Playwright and screenwriter Tristine Skyler will adapt.
This tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young reporter who seeks to make a name for herself in New York but spirals into depression and moves back to Boston. She eventually undergoes electroshock therapy and makes several attempts to take her own life. Stiles will play Greenwood – who as Variety states is regarded as a veiled account of Plath's own life.
Principal photography is tentatively expected to begin in early 2008. Stiles, along with Plum's Celine Rattray, Daniela Taplin Lundberg and Galt Niederhoffer, will produce. Christine Vachon's Killer Films will be associated with the project, with Vachon and Killer's Jocelyn Hayes Simpson exec producing.