By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief
Those who have been patiently waiting for the film version to release have to wait no longer: “Where the Crawdads Sing,” produced by former Palisadian Reese Witherspoon, will be released Friday, July 15.
It was first announced that Witherspoon was set to produce the film in summer 2020.
The film is based on the eponymous novel by Delia Owens. It was selected as Reese’s Book Club pick in 2018, the book went on to become Amazon’s most sold fiction novel of 2019, with more than seven million copies worldwide.
“Abandoned as a girl, Kya raised herself in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina,” according to a synopsis of the film. “For years, rumors of the marsh girl haunted Barkley Cove, isolating the sharp and resilient Kya from her community. Drawn to two young men from town, she opens herself to a new and startling world.”
When the “star quarterback and town hotshot” is found dead and linked to Kya by a former love affair, she becomes the prime suspect in the murder case and must stand trial.
Daisy Edgar-Jones will star as Catherine “Kya” Clarke, with Jojo Regina as young Kya, and Taylor John Smith as Tate Walker, with Luke David Blumm as young Tate.
“There’s a Kya in everyone,” Edgar-Jones told Southern Living in June. “We haven’t all experienced living in a marsh but we’ve all experienced hardship. She’s so human. After so many knocks and hardships … the resilience of the human being is incredible.”
Other leading roles include Harris Dickinson as Chase Andrews, Michael Hyatt as Mabel, Sterling Macer, Jr. as Jumpin and David Strathairn as Tom Milton.
The screenplay was crafted by Lucy Alibar, and Lauren Neustadter joins Witherspoon to produce. The film was produced by Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine as well as 3000 Pictures for Sony Pictures.
The film was previously scheduled to be released on June 24, then pushed back to July 22 before being pushed up a week to the final date of July 15.
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