/Film has brought word that Emma Stone (Superbad, Zombieland) is currently in discussions to star in the DreamWorks adaptation of Kathryn Stockett‘s novel The Maid. Tate Taylor, a childhood friend of Stockett, is set to make his feature directorial debut from his own screenplay adaptation. Stockett’s website describes the storyline of the novel as follows:
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women–mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends–view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.
Along with this possible project, the 21-year-old actress has a very busy 2010 lined up. She will star in Will Gluck‘s Easy A, a comedy-drama starring Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson among others. In addition, she also provided a voice for the upcoming family film Marmaduke, and is currently shooting an untitled comedy directed by Elizabeth Banks, with an all-star cast that includes Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Sam Rockwell, and several other big names.
All in all, Stone’s career looks to be headed in the right direction. Which of her upcoming projects intrigues you the most?