Felicity Jones to Star in Swan Lake Adaptation

The famous 1875 Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake is being turned into a feature film. The film’s script is written by Kristina Lauren Anderson and is set to be directed by Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash). Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) will star in the feature film.

A bidding war started right before the Fourth of July weekend for the film, but ultimately Universal won out over Paramount and other studios. Mandeville Films will be producing the film with Erik Baiers overseeing the project for Universal.

This is not the first time that Swan Lake will find itself the subject of a feature film, however. Although not the direct story, Darren Aronofsky's 2010 stunner Black Swan featured sequences from the infamous ballet. Universal's Swan Lake will be directly based on the ballet, which chronicles the story of a princess who is turned into a swan after a curse is placed on her by an evil sorcerer. The film will include no ballet however, instead, it will be a tentpole film.

Kristina Lauren Anderson previously wrote the script for 2014’s Catherine the Great, another famous Russian story, and Universal also produced Snow White and the Huntsman, which falls in the same realm.

No other cast members have been announced and there is not set release date yet. 

Featured image: Diego Luna, Felicity Jones and Alan Tudyk in Rogue One. Courtesy Walt Disney/Lucasfilm