As if it wasn’t clear enough that Millie Bobby Brown was being positioned as one of Netflix’s major stars for the foreseeable future, the streaming service have swooped in to acquire the rights to literary adaptation The Thing About Jellyfish, which Brown has been attached to since early 2019.
The project’s been in development since 2015 when Reese Witherspoon was announced to be producing the movie through her Hello Sunshine banner, with Orange is the New Black and Shameless scribe Molly Smith Metzler currently writing the script and five-time African Movie Academy Award winner Wanuri Kahiu making her Hollywood directing debut.
The plot follows a girl named Suzy, who becomes convinced that the tragic drowning of her best friend in a boating accident is the cause of a rare jellyfish sting, causing her to retreat into a world of her imagination. The novel is an existential look at life, death and hope told through the eyes of a seventh grader, and has the potential to be a powerful and moving feature-length drama.
It could be a while before The Thing About Jellyfish gets in front of cameras, though, given Brown’s packed slate, the majority of which is set up at Netflix. As well as season 4 of Stranger Things and anywhere up to five Enola Holmes sequels, the 17 year-old recently signed on to headline fantasy adventure epic Damsel, while con artist thriller The Girls I’ve Been is tentatively scheduled to arrive on the platform before the end of the year.
After six years in development and two with Millie Bobby Brown signed on for the lead role, The Thing About Jellyfish will no doubt gather a lot more momentum behind the scenes now that it’s set up at her regular home base.
