When an actor decides that they want to expand their horizons and step behind the camera to see how their performing abilities can inspire their directorial vision, it doesn’t always work out. John Travolta, for example, just recently made his directorial debut with Propeller One-Way Night Coach and, despite his decades of acclaim as an actor, the movie only sits at 52% positive on the aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Clint Eastwood, on the other hand, has dozens of memorable on-screen roles to his name, while also having dozens of directing credits, with many of those movies earning Oscars.
Back in 2024, Netflix released Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, which fits more into the Eastwood realm than the Travolta category. The movie currently has a 91% positive score, with much of the praise centered on Kendrick’s direction. The actor actually pulled double duty on that endeavor, as she also starred in the adaptation of a true-life series of crimes. Netflix wants to stay in the Kendrick business, as she has been enlisted to helm a highly anticipated adaptation.
According to Deadline, Kendrick will be directing an adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. As Deadline describes, “The film follows a young journalist’s long-awaited interview with Evelyn Hugo, an aging Hollywood starlet, who pulls back the curtain on her seven marriages, and as she tells tales of Hollywood scandals, betrayals, and woe, she unveils shocking truths about her own life and the lives of everyone around her.”
The upcoming movie will surely have sordid details, but it might not be quite as dark as the events of Woman of the Hour. That movie focused on real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala and how he somehow managed to become a contestant on The Dating Game. The film highlighted Alcala’s many horrible crimes and how his appearance on the show nearly resulted in even more deaths.
The choice in subject matter for Kendrick’s directorial debut was largely a surprise, given that she regularly provided comedic relief in various lighthearted outings. In 2016, she starred in Ben Affleck’s The Accountant and in 2018, she starred in Paul Feig’s A Simple Favor. These two projects helped showcase her talents in more thrilling realms, likely paving the way for her to deliver an intense outing like Woman of the Hour. While she would return for the sequel Another Simple Favor, she didn’t return for The Accountant 2.
