Catastrophe director takes over The Rosie Project

By Esther Zuckerman | June 22, 2017 | 7:20pm

Aux Features Film

Ben Taylor—a British television director known for his work on Catastrophe—is going to be the latest to try his hand at The Rosie Project, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film would adapt Graeme Simsion’s novel about a genetics professor who tries to find the ideal woman using a what he calls the Wife Project, only to fall for a regular person named Rosie. At one point, Phil Lord and Chris Miller were going to make this movie. Then Richard Linklater thought about it. Jennifer Lawrence—if things had worked out—could have been the star.

But THR reports that Taylor will be starting from scratch casting-wise, though he’ll be working from the screenplay by The Fault In Our Stars’ Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who took it on after Simsion did his own pass. Catastrophe is an excellent example of a rom-com with bite, so we’ll see if Taylor has attached himself to a similarly intriguing project for his film debut.