Amma Asante’s second feature film, Belle, debuted at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and was picked up by Fox Searchlight for wide release later in 2014. With Variety naming her one of the ‘Top 10 Director’s to Watch’ and critic Justin Chang calling the period drama, “surprisingly elegant and emotionally satisfying,” it’s no wonder Warner Bros. has tapped her to direct her first Hollywood studio film, the thriller Unforgettable.
The actress-turned director, who starred as a teenager on the long running British TV series Grange Hill, made her directing debut with the highly acclaimed 2004 A Way Of Life, the story of a teenage single mom. Her next feature, Belle, took over 4 years to complete. Belle tells the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the bi-racial daughter of a British Royal Navy Captain who uses her powerful connections to fight for the abolition of slavery in England in the late 1700s.
Unforgettable has a similar plot to the iconic Michael Douglas/Glenn Close thriller Fatal Attraction, only the roles are reversed, with the ex-wife menacing the new wife this time around.
Denise DeNovi and partner Alison Greenspan will produce from a screenplay by Christian Hodson (2012 Blacklist scribe for The Shut-In).
Watch the Belle trailer here: