After securing a Best Actress nomination for her stunning lead role in Alfonso Cuarón’s visionary space thriller Gravity, Sandra Bullock is perhaps more in-demand now than ever. The actress is taking her time to lock down her next big-screen project, though she has been linked to the announced sequel to her 2013 cop comedy The Heat, and now it appears that she’s circling a buzzy period drama about the success of Tupperware parties in the 1950s.
The film, which is currently untitled, will detail the tense relationship between Tupperware developer Earl Silas Tupper and sales executive Bonnie Wise (the role Bullock is reportedly interested in). Wise’s idea of throwing Tupperware parties made the product massively popular throughout the United States, and the executive rode the coattails of that success to become one of America’s most famous female celebrities, appearing on the cover of Business Week. However, Wise’s disagreements with Tupper led to her being cut out of the company and largely erased from its records in a maneuver from which Wise was never able to recover.
Tate Taylor (The Help) is currently lining the film up to be his next project after this summer’s James Brown biopic Get On Up. Taylor penned the screenplay for the movie, working from Bob Kealing’s nonfiction book Tupperware Unsealed. The writer-director recently met with Bullock to discuss her potentially signing on for the role of Wise, and while reports indicate that Bullock is very interested in the part, no deal has yet been reached.
Tupperware is hardly the most dramatic subject for a film, so it will be interesting to see how Taylor takes on the challenge of investing audiences in the fight between Tupper and Wise. It sounds as if the writer-director has discovered an involving, largely untold story, so I’ll definitely be on the lookout for it.
We’ll keep you posted as a title is chosen and casting for the film gets underway. Given Bullock’s abilities and Taylor’s past accomplishments as a director, expect this one to land squarely on the awards circuit.
