Focus Features Lands Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’

Focus Features has picked up the worldwide rights to Nomadland and Eternals director Chloé Zhao’s next movie, Hamnet , which stars Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn.

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Amblin Partners, Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions and Zhao’s Book of Shadows are backing the feature based on Maggie O’Farrell’s historical novel of the same name about William Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes, as she mourns the loss of her son, Hamnet.

Focus scooped the global rights to the film, with Universal Pictures International handling the international release for the specialty distributor. Zhao, an Oscar winner for Nomadland , a stark drama about life on the fringes of America, wrote the screenplay for Hamnet with O’Farrell. The novel Hamnet has sold 2 million copies in the U.K. and the U.S. and has been translated into 40 languages.

Zhao, who also acts as a writer and editor on many of her movies, followed up her best director and best picture Oscars wins on Nomadland with Marvel Studios’ Eternals , the big-budget sci-fi adventure she directed and co-wrote. Zhao is also known for The Rider .

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The producer credits on Hamnet are shared by Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Sam Mendes and Steven Spielberg. Kristie Macosko Krieger, Nic Gonda and Laurie Borg will executive produce.

Focus Features’ upcoming slate includes Piece by Piece , an animated biopic from Morgan Neville, Robert Eggers’ reimagining of Nosferatu and Edward Berger’s thriller Conclave . The upcoming release slate also includes Steven Soderbergh’s crime thriller Black Bag, starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender; Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons; and the third Downton Abbey movie.

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