Josie Rourke’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic novel is in the works.
Yesterday, our sister company Rabbit’s Foot Films and STUDIOCANAL made the exciting announcement of a major new literary adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic novel The Custom of the Country starring Sydney Sweeney. The film will be adapted by the acclaimed British theatre and film director Josie Rourke.
Often cited as Edith Wharton’s greatest novel—which won over audiences when it was first published in 1913—it tells the story of Undine Spragg, an ambitious woman from the Midwest who arrives in fin-de-siècle New York striving to make a name for herself and courting controversy among elite society along the way.
“Undine Spragg is the original dangerous woman. 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.” said Rourke. Rourke, who made her film debut with Mary Queen of Scots in 2019, adds that Sweeney—who is hot off a box office hit with The Housemaid—was always her top choice for Undine. “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.”
For Producer and A Rabbit’s Foot Editor-in-Chief Charles Finch, seeing Wharton’s novel brought to life on screen has been a longtime ambition. “I’ve worked for many years to bring Custom of the Country to the screen and I’m delighted with Josie’s adaptation, and the power, passion and fun that Sydney will bring to the role.”
Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel, The Custom of the Country
The film will be produced by Charles Finch for Rabbit’s Foot Films, alongside Sydney Sweeney, Alison Owen of Monumental Pictures, and STUDIOCANAL. Casting director Nina Gold is currently assembling the ensemble cast around Sweeney, while STUDIOCANAL executives Ron Halpern, Shana Eddy-Grouf and Isobel Carter are overseeing the production.
Rourke is one of the most exciting talents working across film and theatre. As artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse from 2012 to 2019—one of the first women to hold the role—she produced celebrated adaptations of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Coriolanus and Saint Joan.
With The Custom of the Country, Rourke joins a storied list of directors who have adapted the work of Edith Wharton, from Martin Scorsese with The Age of Innocence to Terrence Davies with The House of Mirth. As a story of ambition and social change starring one of cinema’s most in-demand talents, The Custom of the Country is set to be a film for our times.
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