A classic never goes out of style. Hence with barely a full month passing since PBS/BBC’s American broadcast of a Little Women miniseries, Hollywood is turning its attention once again to that Louisa May Alcott novel for a bigger budget and more lavish production. Further the latest Little Women movie is being spearheaded by writer-director Greta Gerwig after her Oscar nominated work on Lady Bird.
News of Gerwig’s Little Women first came out of Variety, which broke the movie is being developed at Sony’s Columbia Pictures. Already in talks to star are Saoirse Ronan, Emma Stone, Meryl Streep, and Timothee Chalamet. Further Florence Pugh, who’s appeared in Malevolent and The Commuter, is also in talks to star in a leading role (presumably Amy). While none of the roles have been officially revealed, Variety also is reporting that actors are being tested against Stone for the part of Beth, one of the younger March sisters who has a tragic fate.
By process of elimination, it is pretty easy to speculate then that Streep is playing Marmee, the mother and matriarch of the March family, who has to lead her New England family alone when her husband goes off to fight for the Union in the American Civil War. Further Chalamet, who worked with Gerwig in Lady Bird, is almost certainly being eyed for the role of Laurie, the boy next door who winds up becoming a romantic interest for several March sisters. As for Ronan and Stone, an educated guess would suggest Ronan would play the lead role of Jo, given she is the second eldest sister and central protagonist of the story (as Ronan was in Gerwig’s Lady Bird). Stone could therefore be circling Meg, the eldest and most practical of the March sisters.
Little Women is the timeless American classic that with each new generation tends to find fans given its astute study of domestic and family dynamics between sisters and their friends, even if it is precisely rooted in Alcott’s own childhood of growing up with three sisters in Concord, Massachusetts during 19th century hardship. One of the more liberal and progressive conclaves of New England, the forward thinking ideals of the March family is tested as the girls grow and the expectations of society, including marriage and lives without careers, are placed on the family and their neighbors, even before death comes calling.
Apparently Sony and producer Amy Pascal have long been interested in developing a new Little Women movie and originally attracted Gerwig to the project in order to write a new draft of the screenplay. However, after her directorial debut became the toast of the awards circuit, Columbia was eager to lure Gerwig on to also direct the film.
This will be at least the fourth major Hollywood adaptation of Little Women after golden age productions in 1933 and 1949, the first with Kathrine Hepburn and the latter with a woefully miscast Elizabeth Taylor. However, the definitive adaptation of the book remains Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 version (also at Columbia Pictures), which featured a stacked cast that included Winona Ryder as Jo, Claire Danes as Beth, Kirsten Dunst as Amy, Susan Sarandon as Marmee, and Christian Bale as Laurie.
Personally, the idea of topping that seems dubious. And Thomas Newman’s score? Nigh impossible. Listen to it for yourself:
We’ll have more as this one develops.