St Vincent is directing a big screen version of Dorian Gray with a pretty major twist
Annie Clark, known to most of us as singer St Vincent, is going to direct a big screen version of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Lionsgate will develop the new adaptation of the Oscar Wilde’s classic 1890 novel, and there’s a pretty significant twist.
In the movie, Dorian Gray will be a woman, Variety exclusively reports.
The script will be written by David Birke, who wrote Paul Verhoeven’s recent hit Elle.
Wilde’s original novel tells the story of a young man who stays forever young, while his portrait ages.
The Picture of Dorian Gray has been adapted countless times for stage and screen in the 125 years since it was first published.
One of the first was a silent Danish film way back in 1910, directed by Axel Strøm. American and British silent adaptations followed.
Since then, there have been a number of classical and quirky versions, taking in genres as diverse as B-movie horror and musical.
A recent adaptation from 2009 called Dorian Gray was directed by Oliver Parker and starred Ben Barnes as Dorian Gray, Ben Chaplin as Basil Hallward and Colin Firth as Henry Wotton.
The film will be St Vincent’s debut feature, but the out singer has worked in filmmaking before.
Her short film Birthday Party, which she co-wrote, directed and wrote the music for, was screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival as part of the XX horror anthology.
The full anthology was made available to stream on Netflix in March.
It starred Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg and Sheila Vand.
St Vincent has released five studio albums: Marry Me (2007), Actor (2009), Strange Mercy (2011), Love This Giant (with David Byrne) (2012) and St Vincent (2014).
Watch a St Vincent ‘Digital Witness’ music video below:
