We assume that someone, somewhere, doesn’t like Frances McDormand, but it’s a hard thing to imagine. Other than her (very occasional) paycheck roles like “Aeon Flux” or the upcoming “Transformers 3,” she’s reliably excellent, whether in her frequent work with husband Joel Coen, or her terrific performances in the likes of “Wonder Boys,” “Almost Famous” or “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day,” she’s always worth the price of admission.
Now, according to Deadline, she’s moving into the producer’s chair for the first time on a pair of prospective projects. The first is an adaptation of “Every Secret Thing,” a standalone thriller from crime writer Laura Lippman, writer of the popular Tess Monaghan series (and wife of “The Wire” creator David Simon). The plot involves a detective investigating two children who may or may not have killed two babies across seven years, and boasts a script from the excellent Nicole Holofcener, who McDormand worked with a few years back on “Friends With Money.”
Holofcener won’t be directing and McDormand’s role would only be as a producer; instead, she’s lined up Diane Lane to take on the lead role in what is shaping up to be a very promising project.
One project that McDormand would appear in, however, is “Olive Kitteredge,” an adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Elizabeth Strout, which she is producing as a potential series on HBO. The novel, which follows thirteen interlinked stories in a Maine fishing village, seems ripe for long-form adaptation, and it’s being written by HBO veteran and “Mad Men” writer Jane Anderson. Assuming it gets picked up, McDormand would play the title character, a seventh grade math teacher. All in all, they’re two very encouraging projects, and we look forward to others down the road.
