Ashley Avis Lands 'Rose Garden' Film Rights — SkimNews
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- Ashley Avis secured film rights to Joanne Greenberg's 1964 novel "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" after a decade-long effort, and will write, direct, and produce the adaptation.
- Avis will produce through her Winterstone Pictures banner alongside Edward Winters, adapting the story of Deborah Blau, a Jewish teenager diagnosed with schizophrenia who retreats into an imaginary kingdom called Yr before bonding with psychiatrist Dr. Clara Fried at Chestnut Lodge.
- The 1964 novel, which has sold millions of copies worldwide, previously inspired a 1977 Academy Award-nominated film directed by Anthony Page and starring Kathleen Quinlan.
- Avis is best known for directing Disney+'s Black Beauty starring Kate Winslet and Mackenzie Foy and the Critics Choice Award-nominated documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West.
- The filmmaker is also developing American Wolf — about Yellowstone wolves, based on Nate Blakeslee's novel — with Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way, plus a City of Angels reimagining at Warner Bros.
Why it matters: The adaptation revisits a mental health touchstone that earned its 1977 version an Academy Award nomination, now with a filmmaker who wrote her own script and secured rights after a decade — a rare auteur-level commitment. Avis's existing pipeline (American Wolf, City of Angels) signals she's becoming a go-to director for prestige literary adaptations, with CAA and Winterstone Pictures backing the play.
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