A24 and Square Peg are in negotiations to adapt Emma Cline's novel The Guest, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Writer-director Lorene Scafaria is in talks to direct, with Stranger Things star Sadie Sink in talks to both star in and produce the project alongside Square Peg.
Cline's novel, published in 2023 by Penguin Random House, follows a calculating grifter navigating a treacherous Hamptons summer. According to its full synopsis: "Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she's been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake."
The book was longlisted for the Pen/Faulkner award, named a Belletrist Book Club pick, and recognized as a best book of the year by multiple outlets, including The New Yorker, Time, and NPR. Cline's more recent book, Switzy, was longlisted for this year's Booker Prize. Her 2016 debut novel, The Girls — loosely inspired by the 1969 Manson family murders — sold in a three-book deal worth $2 million at the time.
Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2023 about The Guest, Cline said: "I started it in 2016. I love books like The Talented Mr. Ripley, where there are characters who you follow through the narrative that are operating outside the bounds of our moral code. There's something fun about following that kind of chaos. The setting came out of, What would be a fun foil for this kind of character, and what kind of world makes sense?"
Sink most recently appeared in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, marking her official MCU debut as Jean Grey. She is set to reprise the role in a new X-Men film slated for 2028, which will also feature Kit Connor as Cyclops, Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Inde Navarrette as Rogue, and Maya Boyd as Storm, with Adam Driver cast as the villain Mr. Sinister.
Scafaria directed Hustlers, starring Jennifer Lopez, and her other writing and directing credits include Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Meddler, and the adapted screenplay for Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. Her television work includes New Girl, Succession, and HBO's I Love LA, where she serves as executive producer and director.
Sink is represented by WME, Peikoff Mahan and imPRint. Scafaria is repped by UTA and Sloane Offer.
Photo: Chris Roth 1, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
