Blake Lively has just lined up her feature directorial debut, with Deadline reporting that the former Gossip Girl star will soon be adapting a film version of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel Seconds—O’Malley’s well-received follow-up to Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
Lively first got into directing professionally last year, in about as high profile way as a newcomer might be able to bear: Directing the Miles Teller-featuring video for “I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version),” part of the roll-out of Taylor Swift’s re-release project Red (Taylor’s Version). Which is actually weirdly fitting for this new project, since the basic theme of Seconds is the urge to go back and make a better version of the past.
Specifically, the graphic novel centers on Katie, a restaurateur who discovers, and then quickly begins abusing, magical mushrooms that allow her to change a single decision in the past. What starts as a few minor alterations to make her life better quickly escalate in scale, eventually threatening to collapse all of reality, which is “pretty heavy” as far as the consequences of bad restaurant management usually go.
We were fans, in case it wasn’t clear; here’s Oliver Sava reviewing the book after its release in 2014:
Seconds has all the wit, charm, and spectacle of Scott Pilgrim, but it achieves greater emotional depth thanks to a concept that allows O’Malley to explore character relationships from a variety of different angles. The major themes of Scott Pilgrim are also at play in Seconds—adult stagnation, unresolved issues with exes, the fragility of affection—but they’re approached with more subtlety and grace in this tight, engrossing narrative.
Also involved in Seconds, The Movie: O’Malley’s old collaborator (and Scott Pilgrim director) Edgar Wright, who will not only serve as a producer on Lively’s film, but has also written an adapted screenplay for it with La La Land’s Marc Platt. The film is being set up at Searchlight Pictures, placing it under the Disney umbrella of film properties.