Kendrick to Direct Netflix's 'Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo' — SkimNews
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- Anna Kendrick announced she is directing Netflix's "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo," adapted from Taylor Jenkins Reid's best-selling novel, saying she is "over the moon and so excited."
- The "Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" film is written by Liz Tigelaar ("Little Fires Everywhere") with current revisions by Francesca Sloane ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith," "Atlanta"), with Jenkins Reid on board as executive producer.
- Kendrick credited a blunt pep talk from "Pitch Perfect" co-star Brittany Snow — who told her she'd "know what to do" once on set — with calming her first-time-director nerves, after Snow had experienced the same jitters making "Parachute."
- Kendrick compared her "Pitch Perfect" cast — including Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Hailee Steinfeld, and Snow — to the Avengers, describing 10 women who became "family" and mobilize on group chat when one is facing something "troubling."
- Kendrick pushed back on "historical revisionism" around "Pitch Perfect," saying it "did fine" at the box office and "wouldn't have gotten a sequel off the strength of the box-office numbers" — but credits the franchise with later enabling projects like "Alice, Darling."
- The "Cups" song from "Pitch Perfect" — which Kendrick initially thought was "a waste of money" to record — went on to rack up over 2.5 million digital downloads, 600 million combined YouTube views, and a No. 6 Billboard Hot 100 peak.
- Kendrick reunited with Seth Rogen for "Babies" (directed by his wife Lauren Miller Rogen), 15 years after "50/50," saying observing the real-life couple on set felt like getting "my roadmap for this."
Why it matters: For Netflix, Kendrick's directorial debut on a Reid best-seller — with the author as EP and a writers' room pedigree spanning "Little Fires Everywhere," "Atlanta," and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" — is a prestige novel adaptation play with the source material's creator directly attached. For Kendrick, her candid "it did fine, not a sleeper hit" reframing of Pitch Perfect's legacy claims the franchise's cultural second life, not its box office, as what actually greenlit her directorial future.
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