Zoë Saldaña
Big news: Zoë Saldaña continues her ascent; she’s just been cast in NBC’s four-hour miniseries Rosemary’s Baby, a new adaptation of Ira Levin’s best-selling horror novel.
1968 film
Saldaña will play the expectant mother who moves into a Paris apartment building with her well-meaning husband…but the longer they stay, the less she likes the strange and secretive neighbors that her husband seems so close to, and the more she feels they are a threat–somehow, horribly–to her baby.
Even the short summary shows there are some distinct differences between this new version and the original work, not to mention the 1968 Roman Polanski film that starred Mia Farrow in the same role. For one thing, the setting has been switched to Paris from New York City. For another, in both book and Polanski film, Rosemary and her husband move into the weird apartment and meet the really weird neighbors before she becomes pregnant. In fact, the act of impregnation itself is part of the story. We can hope that a third aspect of the original(s) will change as well: in those incarnations, Rosemary Woodbine is a quintessential victim, manipulated first by her husband, then by the sinister neighbors, and ultimately by Satan himself. It seems hard to believe that Saldaña, who has played a string of powerful and decisive women in everything from Avatar to Colombiana to Star Trek, will settle for that. Expect more big–and hopefully positive–changes as the project gets underway. There’s certainly some impressive talent involved behind the camera. The screenplay comes from two writers whose credits include Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, The X-Files, and American Horror Story, and the director is an alumni of Treme.
All of this will happen after Saldaña finishes her work as an intergalactive assassin and shed the green skin she grew for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy.
More as the story develops…
