Scarlett Johansson Versus Jennifer Lawrence on Zelda Fitzgerald Role
Leading ladies Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lawrence will be thrown into an involuntary comparison, as the two stars are each casted to portray the late Zelda Fitzgerald in dueling biopics.
Lawrence will play the titular Zelda Fitzgerald, a novelist, socialite and the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, Johansson's film is titled "The Beautiful and the Damned," and is based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic of the same name, which illustrated the dynamics of his marriage to Zelda, according to E!Online.
The Jazz Age icon and wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald was admitted to a sanatorium where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia in April 1930 when mental health worsened. She died nearly 70 years ago in a fire at a North Carolina hospital, but her life has been at the forefront of Hollywood's inspiration as of late.
She wrote a semi-biographical novel in which the protagonist tries to establish herself independently of her husband. It was panned by critics.
The films are said to dive into Fitzgerald's personal life, portraying parts of her livelihood that may have been glazed over through history. At any rate, each film is expected to become a blockbuster hit in its own right due to respective leading actresses. Both Lawrence and Johansson made it on Forbes' annual list of highest-earning female movie stars for 2016.
Lawrence led the pack for the second year in a row, bringing in a whopping $46 million, largely thanks to big box office gross ($653.4 million) from her final "Hunger Games" installment. Johansson came in at No. 3, behind Melissa McCarthey, with "$25 million."
Both actresses are not the first to portray Zelda on the big screen, Vanessa Kirby recently played the female author in a small role in Colin Firth-starring drama "Genius" and actress Alison Pill portrayed her in director Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."
