Kirsten Dunst is set make her feature film directorial debut with The Bell Jar, an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s famed 1963 novel. Dakota Fanning has been set to play the lead role of Esther Greenwood in the pic, which Dunst has co-written with Nellie Kim. The Stanford Prison Experiment producer Priority Pictures optioned remake rights from Studio Canal, and production is eyed to start in first-quarter 2017.

Priority’s Lizzie Friedman, Karen Lauder and Greg Little will produce alongside Fanning and Echo Lake Entertainment’s Brittany Kahan. Celine Rattray is executive producing.

The Bell Jar is set in the 1950s and follows Greenwood, who takes an internship at a magazine in New York City and, after she returns home to Boston, begins to suffer from mental illness. A 1979 movie adaptation of the book was directed by Larry Peerce and starred Marilyn Hassett.

Dunst, just nominated for an Emmy for her work on FX’s Fargo, has directed a pair of short films: Welcome starring Winona Ryder and John Hawkes, which was screened at Sundance; and Bastard starring Brian Geraghty and Lukas Haas which screened at Tribeca and Cannes. Her recent film credits include Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special and she’s next up in Woodstock and Ted Melfi’s Hidden Figures. Dunst is repped by UTA and Management 360.

Fanning, whose recent credits include The Secret Life Of Bees and The Runaways, is next up in Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut American Pastoral. She’s repped by CAA and Echo Lake.

Patrick Hipes, deadline.com

I’m delighted to say that Kirsten has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the “Best Actress, Limited Series or TV Movie” category for her performance in “Fargo.” The show earned an amazing 18 nominations in total.

Here’s a list of the nominees in all the major categories.

Kirsten is 34 years young today! On behalf of Jess, Marc & everyone at the website I’d like to wish Kirsten a very happy birthday. Have a great day Kiki!

To mark the occasion we’ve added to the gallery some rare HQ pics of Kirsten at the “Interview With The Vampire” premiere in November 1994.

Kirsten Dunst, Donald Sutherland, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen and Hungarian helmer Laszlo Nemes (“Son of Saul”) will sit on Cannes Film Festival’s competition jury, which will be presided by George Miller.

Nemes’s debut “Son of Saul” won last year’s Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and received the award from the hands of Mikkelsen during the closing ceremony.

Critically-aclaimed French director Arnaud Desplechin, whose latest film “My Golden Days” opened at last year’s Directors Fortnight, Italian actress-turned-filmmaker Valeria Golino, whose feature debut “Miele” opened at Un Certain Regard in 2013, French singer/thesp Vanessa Paradis and Iranian producer Katayoon Shahabi will complete the jury.

Shahabi has notably produced Ida Panahandeh’s “Nahid” which world premiered at Un Certain Regard in 2015.

Most talent and filmmakers sitting on the jury have been involved in local and international projects. Dunst, who won Cannes’ best actress prize for her role in Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” in 2011, will next be seen in Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s “Woodshock.” Mikkelsen, who’s performance in Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt” earned him a Cannes prize in 2012, will star in “Doctor Strange” and Star Wars, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Sutherland, meanwhile, will next be seen in “Milton’s Secret” and “Measure of a Man.”

“Cannes has always sought to adopt a universal and international approach, and in tune with this tradition, George Miller will be surrounded by eight luminaries of world cinema, from Iran, Denmark, United States, Italia, France, Canada and Hungary,” said the festival.

The competition comprises 21 films this year. Winners will be announced on closing night May 22nd. The Festival will run from May 11th-22nd.

Elsa Keslassy, variety.com.

“Midnight Special” goes on general release in UK cinemas tomorrow (Friday). Don’t miss it!

The Motion Picture & Television Fund is adding major star wattage to its fifth annual “Reel Stories, Real Lives” event, as the charitable organization announced on Friday that Matt Bomer, Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas, Kirsten Dunst, and Bryce Dallas Howard will take the stage as storytellers at the April 7th ceremony in Los Angeles. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Dennis Haysbert will also speak, while former Parks & Recreation star Adam Scott is set to host.

The stars will conduct a series of readings, sharing stories written by other people about how they benefitted from the MPTF over the years. The MPTF’s community outreach includes 95 years of charitable operations, including programs fostering the well being of the film & television community, senior care, and palliative care services.

Last year’s event included stories told by Lizzy Caplan, Tony Goldwyn, Tobey Maguire, Alessandro Nivola, Mira Sorvino, Kevin Spacey, and John Stamos.

“What makes life incredible, and … what makes storytelling incredible, is that the moment you hear a personal story — whatever your situation is — everything falls away because you identify with somebody’s experience,” Kevin Spacey told the 2015 audience, per Variety. Masters of Sex’s Lizzy Caplan added: “This is very much a community… and at times it can be a contentious community — competitive and all the things that we like to gossip and complain about — but at the end of the day, I really believe that this community will take care of me when I need them to.”

Guymon Casady, Julie Darmody, William Gerber, Eric Kranzler, Kevin McCormick, Karen Rosenfelt, Greg Sills, Courtenay Valenti, and Warren Zavala will produce the event, which is sponsored by Delta Air Lines, while EW serves as the event’s official media partner.

“Midnight Special” expands it’s U.S release to about 55 screens today. There are new openings in Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, Little Rock, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

U.S based fans can find the nearest cinemas that are screening the film here.

Kirsten is currently in London doing promotional work for “Midnight Special” which hits UK cinemas on April 8th. Tomorrow night she will be a guest on “The Graham Norton Show”. Also appearing on the show are actors Chris Hemsworth & Stephen Mangan, actress Jessica Chastain & there’s music from Raleigh Ritchie. Quite a line up! The show airs on BBC1 at 10.35 pm tomorrow.

Sofia Coppola is set to write, direct, and produce “The Beguiled”, a remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood Civil War romance, sources confirm. Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning are attached to star in what will be Coppola’s first feature film since her 2013 fame-obsessed crime drama The Bling Ring.

The story will be a new take on the premise of the Don Siegel-directed original, which is based on the Southern Gothic novel by Thomas P. Cullian. Set during the Civil War, a young girl from an all-female Confederate boarding school comes across an injured Union soldier. The school takes him in to help him recover, but he cons his way into their hearts and the women start to fight with him and each other for his attention.

Nicole Kidman will play the role of Martha Farnsworth, the Head Mistress of the school originally played by Academy Award-winning actress Geraldine Page. Frequent Coppola collaborators Elle Fanning (Somewhere) and Kirsten Dunst (The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette) are also attached to roles in the film, with Fanning playing a girl residing at the house, and Dunst a teacher.

Producers are also searching for the male lead previously played by Eastwood, and sources say they’re eyeing a Chris Pratt type for the part.

Focus Features is set to release the The Beguiled, with Coppola producing alongside with her brother, Roman, under their American Zoetrope banner. Fred Roos of FR Productions will serve as an executive producer while Rebecca Arzoian will oversee at Focus.

The Beguiled is a project that is definitely in Coppola’s wheelhouse, but for her to take on a remake is something new. She is no stranger to movies based on source material; Coppola adapted Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides and gave us her interesting interpretation of the excessive monarch, Marie Antoinette. In The Bling Ring, she gave us a taste of true crime — more or less. Coppola’s style tends to gravitate towards conflicted female characters who subject themselves to failure or quietly find a side of themselves that they never new was there.

In addition to all of Coppola’s aforementioned films, Lost In Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, earned her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2003. The pic also received a nod for Best Picture as well as a nomination for Best Director, which made her the first American woman to be nominated in the category. She recently directed, produced and wrote A Very Murray Christmas and is slated to produce the adaptation of Alysia Abbott’s Fairyland. She is repped by ICM Partners.

Kidman recently starred in the American remake of the Argentinian film Secret in Their Eyes. She can be seen next in the adaptation of the A. Scott Berg book, Genius opposite Jude Law as well as the Garth Davis drama Lion with Rooney Mara. She is repped by CAA and Shanahan Management.

Dunst can currently be seen in Jeff Nichols’s Midnight Special alongside Michael Shannon and Joel Edgerton. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her role in the second season of FX’s Fargo. She can be seen next in Woodshock as well as the upcoming drama Hidden Figures starring Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson. She is repped by UTA.

Fanning was recently seen in the Academy Award-nominated Trumbo as well as About Ray. She can be seen next in as the star of Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and the romantic drama A Storm in the Stars, where she will play Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. She is repped by WME and Echo Lake Entertainment.

Dino-Ray Ramos, tracking-board.com

Interesting news & it ties in with the brief details Kirsten gave about the project in her “The Gentleman” interview. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that Garrett would be an obvious (& ideal) choice for the male lead role.

Following impressive critical and audience response, the sci-fi thriller “Midnight Special,” from acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols, will launch the second wave of its North American release on Friday, April 1st. The film earned an outstanding $38,000 per-screen average across only five theaters in its March 18th debut in New York, Los Angeles and Austin, for an approximate opening weekend total of $190,000 in only five theaters, making it one of the year’s most successful limited openings.

“Midnight Special” will next expand to approximately 55 screens in 17 total markets, with additional openings set for Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, Little Rock, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

The film, starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Jaeden Lieberher and Sam Shepard, first played to overwhelming acclaim at its February 12th world premiere in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, and again at SXSW on March 12th. Stellar reviews have top critics calling it “brilliant,” “gripping,” “spell-binding” and “ambitious,” citing great performances and proclaiming Nichols “a master filmmaker.”

Beyond its April 1st expansion, “Midnight Special” will continue its theatrical rollout with additional screens and markets on April 8th, April 15th and April 22nd.

Writer/director Jeff Nichols proves again that he is one of the most compelling storytellers of our time with the sci-fi thriller “Midnight Special.” A provocative, genre-defying film as supernatural as it is intimately human, it follows a father, Roy (Michael Shannon), who goes on the run to protect his young son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), a boy with mysterious powers that even Roy himself cannot comprehend. What starts as a race from religious extremists and local law enforcement quickly escalates to a nationwide manhunt involving the highest levels of the Federal Government. Risking everything, Roy is committed to helping Alton reach his ultimate purpose, whatever that might be and whatever it costs, in a story that takes audiences on a perilous journey from Texas to the Florida coast, while exploring the bonds of love and trust, and the nature of faith.

Midnight Special” stars Oscar nominee Michael Shannon (“99 Homes,” “Revolutionary Road”), Joel Edgerton (“Black Mass”), Kirsten Dunst (TV’s “Fargo”), Adam Driver (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”), Jaeden Lieberher (“St. Vincent”) and Oscar nominee Sam Shepard (“The Right Stuff,” “August Osage County”).

Jeff Nichols (“Mud,” “Take Shelter”) directed the film from his own screenplay. It is produced by Oscar nominee Sarah Green (“The Tree of Life,” “Mud”) and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (the “Insidious” films, “Sinister”), who previously collaborated with Nichols on his critically acclaimed thriller “Take Shelter.” Glen Basner, Hans Graffunder and Christos V. Konstantakopoulos served as executive producers.

Also reuniting with Nichols behind the scenes were director of photography Adam Stone, production designer Chad Keith and editor Julie Monroe. David Wingo composed the score.