The housemaid is on its way to the scene, and given its track record, it’s hard to bet against it.
Lionsgate has announced that they are developing a stage adaptation of the psychological thriller, based on Freida McFadden’s best-selling novel and the hit film of the same name.
British production company Melting Pot, led by Simon Friend and Hanna Osmolska, the team behind the stage versions of Piss life and paranormal activity, will produce with playwright Bekah Brunstetter, best known for Broadway’s The notebookwrites the manuscript.
A production timeline has yet to be confirmed.
The move makes great commercial sense.
The film, directed by Paul Feig and starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, quietly became one of the more notable box office stories of recent times, grossing $400 million worldwide on a production budget of just $35 million.
A sequel, The Housemaid’s Secretis already in the pipeline, with production expected to begin later this year ahead of a planned December 17, 2027 theatrical release.
The stage version will draw on both the novel and the film, which basically tell the same story, a young woman with a hidden past takes a live-in housekeeping position with a wealthy family whose seemingly perfect life hides some very dark secrets.
The endings of the book and the movie differ slightly, although the core story remains the same.
For Friend, the material is a natural fit for theatre.
“When I first read The housemaidit was exciting,” he said.
“What struck me is how truly theatrical the story is, not just largely set in a single, claustrophobic location, but the twisty elements that modernize what’s long worked in potboiler scene thrillers.”
He has spoken of wanting to “amp up its intensity” for live audiences, a logical ambition given that much of the film’s appeal came from experiencing its campier moments and jump scares in a crowd.
Brunstetter is equally excited.
“I am so excited to bring this poignant, emotional, strange and even funny story to the stage,” she said.
“I’m very excited to dig in The maid’s incredibly universal themes of jealousy, the pain of desire and the traumas that connect us.”
The housemaid joins a growing list of Lionsgate properties making the leap from screen to stage.
Productions based on Dirty Dancing, La La Land and Wonder are all under development, while a stage version of The Hunger Games currently running in London’s West End.
It is in any case an ambitious expansion, and The housemaidwith its built-in audience and proven commercial appeal, looks like one of the strongest bets of the bunch.
