Rebel Wilson made a major announcement during an interview in Cannes today.
Speaking with Deadline, Wilson revealed that she is set to direct her first feature film, The Deb. The musical is set in Australia and “brings the bush into the city.”
The Deb was written by the duo of Hannah Reilly and Meg Washington and is based on a stage show that premiered at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People last year. Wilson will be starring in the film and it will also feature two songs that were not in the original play. Amanda Ghost, Len Blavatnik, and Gregor Cameron are all producing via Unigram and its sister company AI Film. Wilson's Camp Sugar Productions and Bunya Productions — an award-winning Australian production company — will also produce while Danny Cohen of Access Entertainment will executive produce the project.
The story, as Wilson described, follows two young women from different cultures. One's from “the bush” and the other is “a cynical city girl.” What they share is their search for self-acceptance and a date to the Deb. Wilson also compared the appeal of The Deb to that of Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Production will begin in September and take place in Sydney, Australia, and rural New South Wales.
Speaking to Deadline about the project in Cannes, Wilson said, “Basically, it came out of my scholarship program at ATYP, which is where I learned to act and put on my first show.”
She would go on and reveal that she first heard the score of The Deb three years ago. “I said then that I think this is a film, and after we premiered it last year I said, ‘We've got to make this into a movie.' Not all projects in Australia have universal appeal, but this one does,” she said.
Rebel Wilson has made a name for herself with performances in the Pitch Perfect franchise, How to Be Single, and the Oscar-winning film Jojo Rabbit by Taika Waititi. Those experiences more than likely prepared her for taking over the director's chair on The Deb.
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