Angelina Jolie will star in a film adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People, Deadline reports.
Backman’s novel, published in the U.S. by Atria in 2020, follows a group of people at an apartment open house who are taken hostage by a bank robber. A critic for Kirkus called the book “a story with both comedy and heartbreak sure to please Backman fans.”
Jolie won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 2000 for Girl, Interrupted and recently garnered critical acclaim for her starring role in the Maria Callas biopic, Maria. She will play Zara, an investment banker who is one of the hostages.
Director Marc Forster and screenwriter David Magee are teaming up on the film; the two previously worked together on A Man Called Otto, the 2022 film adaptation of Backman’s A Man Called Ove. Forster and Magee were also attached to a planned adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, but that film was paused last year after several women accused Gaiman of sexual assault.
Renée Wolfe, a producer on the Anxious People adaptation, told Deadline, “Anxious People is a uniquely warm and heartfelt story that speaks to our chaotic times by asking us to step outside of our own stories and slow down enough to actually see one another. It is set a week before Christmas and highlights a time when generosity and giving are values that are more in focus.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
