Jennifer Lawrence is the #1 choice to play Blonde Bond WWII spy Betty Pack
Jennifer Lawrence is, for better or for worse, the biggest thing in Hollywood right now. She’s already wrapped the Hunger Games franchise and most people believe X-Men: Apocalypse will be her last outing with the X-Men franchise. So Jennifer is packing her schedule with interesting non-franchise projects, and at this point, I believe she’s basically seeing every script first. If there’s a role for a woman aged 17-40, J-Law has been sent the script. Back in January, J-Law became attached to play Ilona Marita Lorenz, the controversial and scandalous woman who seduced her way through powerful men like Fidel Castro and a Venezuelan dictator. Now Page Six says that J-Law is the leading contender to play another controversial woman – the famous WWII spy Betty Pack.
“A Blonde Bond” — that’s what Time magazine called WWII secret agent Betty Pack in her obituary. She used the bedroom, the magazine wrote, as Bond “uses a Beretta.”
“The Last Goodnight,” Howard Blum’s nonfiction account of Pack’s life — a tale of clandestine missions, suspense and amorous adventures — will be published Tuesday by HarperCollins with a first printing of 100,000. Pack was the spy who, according to her bosses, “changed the entire course of the war.”
Sony’s Columbia TriStar Pictures has bought the film rights for a hefty six-figure sum and Mark Gordon (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Steve Jobs” and the TV series “Ray Donovan”) will be producing. Sony is already busily deciding who will star as Pack, and while many actresses are pursuing the role, the early studio favorite is Jennifer Lawrence.
The book’s title comes from a bit of wisdom the CIA passes on to its new agents: “The last person to whom you say good night is the most dangerous.” And Betty Pack, femme fatale, personified the risks of intimacy.
For a second, I was like “isn’t there already a movie about a female spy called The Last Goodnight?” I was thinking of The Long Kiss Goodnight, the Geena Davis film. Anyway, I looked up Betty Pack, and in 1941 (the start of the war for America), Pack would have been 31 years old. J-Law is currently 25 years old, but it will take a year or more for the script to be adapted and for the film to get financing and everything, so J-Law will be pretty close to the real age. So I don’t have a problem with that. I looked at some old photos of Pack, and I could sort of see J-Law in the role too. I could also see Jessica Chastain, I think. In any case, I’m sure Jennifer will be offered this part and she probably is everyone’s first choice. Could she pull it off?
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
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