February 8, 2017 - 10:54 AMT
Nicole Kidman to produce “The Expatriates” bestseller adaptation

Nicole Kidman and her Blossom Films have optioned Janice Y.K. Lee’s bestselling novel The Expatriates to be adapted as a television series, Deadline reports.

Screenwriter Alice Bell (Suburban Mayhem) is attached to pen the adaptation, with a potential role for Kidman to star. Kidman and Blossom partner Per Saari will executive produce alongside POW! Productions’ Theresa Park, with Lee serving as consulting producer. The project will be shopped to premium networks and streaming-services.

The Expatriates, published by Penguin, explores, with equal parts humor and drama, the complicated relationships of three American women as they navigate life inside tight-knit expat Hong Kong.

Blossom Films’ limited series Big Little Lies, adapted from Liane Moriarty’s bestseller by David E. Kelley, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and starring Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley, premieres February 19 on HBO. With their Big Little Lies co-producers Pacific Standard, Blossom also is adapting Moriarty’s new novel Truly Madly Guilty for the big screen. Additionally, Blossom is developing a feature adaptation of the literary sleeper hit The Silent Wife, an adaptation of bestseller Reconstructing Amelia, and an adaptation of off-Broadway vampire hit Cuddles. The company’s feature credits include Rabbit Hole, The Family Fang, and Monte Carlo.

Lee’s previous novel, The Piano Teacher (Penguin), was a New York Times bestseller that was translated into 24 languages.

Theresa Park, principal of POW! Productions, was a producer on The Longest Ride (Fox 2000, 2015) before partnering with Peter Safran and Nicholas Sparks on The Choice (Lionsgate, 2016).

Bell won the Australian Writers Guild Award for Best Original Screenplay for her debut, Suburban Mayhem. Her credits include the award-winning original The Slap, Puberty Rules, and most recently a contemporary adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, The Beautiful Lie.