Zoë Kravitz (The Batman) has signed on to star in Biter, a new dark comedy based on the short story by Cat Person‘s Kristen Roupenian. Kravitz will also produce via her company This Is Important, with Paperclip Ltd and Winterlight Pictures co-producing.
Part of Roupenian’s debut short story collection You Know You Want This published in 2019, which Winterlight brought to Kravitz and Paperclip, “Biter” tells the story of a young woman who fantasizes about biting one of her co-workers.
Kravitz comes to the project after wrapping production on her directorial debut Pussy Island — a thriller she co-wrote starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum, which was acquired by MGM in a competitive situation. The project also builds momentum for Roupenian, who saw a Susanna Fogel-directed adaptation of her viral New Yorker short story Cat Person premiere to much buzz and discussion at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. A writer and director for Biter have not yet been attached.
“As an IP-driven company, short story-based projects have become a huge part of our slate. There is nobody who has broken out in the world of short stories quite like Kristen Roupenian,” Winterlight Pictures founder Chris Goldberg told Deadline. “We are so proud to be working with such an exceptional talent and voice of her generation. We were also blown away by Zoë Kravitz in Kimi and The Batman, and could not be more excited to collaborate with someone so multi-talented and quickly emerging as one of the world’s biggest movie stars.”
“Our team at Paperclip Ltd is excited to work with incredible talents Zoë and Kristen in front of and behind the camera on this thrilling narrative, and Chris and the team at Winterlight are ideal creative partners,” added company founders Yeardley Smith and Ben Cornwell.
Kravitz most recently starred as Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Matt Reeves‘ Warner Bros blockbuster The Batman, which was nominated for three Oscars and grossed over $770 million worldwide. She also recently led Steven Soderbergh’s surveillance thriller Kimi for New Line/HBO Max as well as Hulu’s series High Fidelity, based on the classic Nick Hornby novel. Named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2022, Kravitz was previously a core cast member of HBO’s Emmy-winning Big Little Lies, based on the novel by Liane Moriarty.
Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” is a darkly comedic thriller that looks at the brief relationship between 20-year-old college sophomore Margot and the somewhat-older Robert from the perspective of both characters, as a means of commenting on modern dating and power dynamics. Michelle Ashford adapted the script for the film version, which stars CODA‘s Emilia Jones and Succession‘s Nicholas Braun. Roupenian also penned the story for Halina Reijn’s hit A24 pic Bodies Bodies Bodies, has multiple other features in development, and is currently at work on a novel.
Founded in 2014 by Smith and Cornwell, Paperclip’s film portfolio includes the thrillers Possessions and Alone, the GLAAD Media Award-nominated drama Gossamer Folds, Who Are You People and John Hyams’ SXSW Audience Award winner All Square with House of Cards’ Michael Kelly, Pamela Adlon and more.
Winterlight is also producing an adaptation of Nita Prose’s No. 1 New York Times bestseller The Maid which has been set up at Universal, along with many more IP-driven projects for film and TV. The company has notably collaborated with authors on a number of short story-based projects including Duane Swierczynski, whose story “Lush” is set up at Lionsgate, and Christian Cantrell, who has taken a story to MRC. Also among those authors is Goldberg, who has a feature based on one of his short stories in development at Netflix.
Kravitz is repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Edelstein, Laird & Sobel; and Roupenian by CAA, Range Media Partners and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
