Anna Kendrick Will Direct Netflix’s ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ Movie

Anna Kendrick is stepping behind the camera again—this time for one of Netflix’s most closely watched literary adaptations.

Kendrick will direct The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Netflix’s film version of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2017 novel about an aging Hollywood star who finally reveals the secrets behind her career and seven marriages. Netflix says the project is now preparing to enter production, though no cast or release date has been announced.

The appointment is significant because the film has spent years moving through development and has already had other filmmakers attached. Kendrick’s hiring gives the adaptation a fresh creative direction, but it also puts pressure on the project to solve the problem that has shadowed it from the beginning: how to fit a sprawling, emotionally layered story into one feature film.

The novel is structured around Evelyn Hugo’s long interview with Monique Grant, a relatively unknown journalist chosen to tell the star’s life story. That setup allows the book to move between decades, marriages, Hollywood eras, public reinvention, and the private relationship at the center of Evelyn’s life. A film can preserve the interview framework, but it will have to make difficult choices about which periods and relationships receive the most attention.

That makes Kendrick’s background more relevant than the announcement’s headline alone suggests. Her previous Netflix film, Woman of the Hour, was her directorial debut. That movie was a contained true-crime drama centered on a television appearance and the danger hidden beneath a polished public image. Evelyn Hugo is a very different kind of story—larger, more glamorous, and built around decades of performance—but it also turns on the gap between a woman’s public identity and the life she has concealed.

Netflix’s announced creative team includes screenwriter Liz Tigelaar, with current revisions by Francesca Sloane. Reid will executive produce. The producers are Liza Chasin, Brad Mendelsohn, and David Hinojosa, according to Netflix’s project update.

The adaptation’s most visible question is still unanswered: who will play Evelyn? The role requires a performer capable of selling both the star’s manufactured image and the cost of maintaining it over a lifetime. Monique’s casting will be nearly as important, since the journalist is not simply an audience surrogate; her connection to Evelyn is part of the film’s emotional architecture.

The lack of a release date is also a reminder that Kendrick’s appointment is progress, not a finish line. Netflix has not announced production dates or principal photography, and there is no confirmed information about the actors who will portray Evelyn, Monique, or the seven husbands.

Still, the director announcement changes the project’s status. After years of anticipation and creative turnover, Evelyn Hugo now has a filmmaker with an established relationship with Netflix and experience directing a performance-driven story about secrecy, image, and danger. The next test will be whether the adaptation can preserve the novel’s intimate core while giving its Hollywood spectacle enough room to breathe.