Anya Taylor-Joy has been rebuffed in her quest to appear in a film adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1930s-era novel Laughter in the Dark, according to a New Yorker article about script doctor Scott Frank.
Frank had previously worked with Taylor-Joy on The Queen’s Gambit, an acclaimed Netflix series in which the actress played the role of chess prodigy Beth Harmon, struggling with substance abuse. The series won several Emmy awards and propelled Taylor-Joy to stardom. Frank also contributed his talents to another Netflix production, the Godless mini-series.
The New Yorker article revealed that Frank wanted to adapt the Nabokov novel together with Megan Abbott, but Netflix gave the project a thumbs-down. Laughter in the Dark, viewed by literary historians as a precursor to Nabokov’s iconic Lolita, is the story of a middle-aged art critic who develops an infatuation with a 17-year-old girl.
It was originally published in Russian in 1932; an English translation titled Camera Obscura, by Winifred Roy, appeared in 1936. Nabokov disapproved of Roy’s translation and did his own, titled Laughter in the Dark, published in 1938.
Frank had been hoping to do a film noir adaptation of the novel until the project was redlighted. Abbott was quoted as saying, “We talked about the femme fatale as this character who gets short shrift. But really great noir is always toying with that. Scott wanted the female point of view to be foregrounded.”
The prolific script doctor/screenwriter, meanwhile, is busy with other projects, including the Monsieur Spade series that stars Clive Owen and that will debut this month. He’s also reportedly working on another project for Netflix, an adaptation of Department Q, a crime novel by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen.
Anna Taylor-Joy, whose acting career was jump-started by her appearance in The Queen’s Gambit, has also recently achieved notoriety for her roles in The Witch, Thoroughbreds, and Amsterdam. She will next appear in George Miller’s action film Furious: A Mad Max Saga and in Scott Derrickson’s romantic action film The Gorge.
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