It's official! Sydney Sweeney will both star in and produce a new film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1913 classic “The Custom of the Country”.
Sweeney is set to portray Undine Spragg, a ruthlessly ambitious Midwesterner, determined to conquer the elite social circles in turn-of-the-century New York.
The project will be directed and written by Josie Rourke. This film adaptation follows a long-stalled attempt to bring the novel to the screen and will be produced under Sweeney's Fifty-Fifty Films banner.
As described in the official press release, Undine Spragg, "armed with beauty, daring/hustle and sheer force of will and unwavering ambition, battles an entrenched elite, fearlessly courting controversy, until love and fortune align.”
Rourke describes Undine Spragg as the "original dangerous woman" and feels the casting of Sweeney is “kismet”.
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"The book whistles with modernity and as I was writing this adaptation, Sydney Sweeney lived in my head as this iconic character—it's as if Wharton sat down a century ago and wrote the role for her," added Rourke.
"Edith Wharton's character has forever fascinated, seduced and infuriated readers. 'The Custom of the Country' was Wharton's great American novel and Undine Spragg sweeps across America and through Europe at top speed, during a time of immense economic and social change," Rourke said in a statement.
Meanwhile. casting director Nina Gold is in the process of building the ensemble around Sweeney, according to a press release. Principal photography is expected to begin imminently.
Filmmaker Sofia Coppola had planned in 2020 to turn Wharton's novel into a miniseries starring Florence Pugh, but the project, set at Apple, never came to fruition.
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