Filmmaker Leslye Headland has confirmed she will no longer be directing the film version of the best-selling novel The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo.

Discussions about adapting the hit novel for the screen have been ongoing pretty much ever since it was first published, with plans initially being announced to turn it into a TV series.

When these plans fell through, Netflix announced in 2022 that it had acquired the rights to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s book with the intention of making a film version.

At the time, Leslye Headland – who previously had success with the Netflix series Russian Doll, and more recently helmed the Star Wars spin-off The Acolyte – was revealed to be on directing duties, but she’s now revealed this is not the case anymore.

“I am no longer working on that project,” she told Variety. “I remain a huge, huge fan of the book and of the people working on it.”

Leslye explained: “It’s one of those things where you know it’s going to be a huge success. I thought, ‘Damn it. It’s not going to work out with me involved in it, but it is going to be wildly successful’.

“It is the type of book that if I’d read it in my twenties, I would have had a completely different life. It’s so beautifully done.”

As the title suggests The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo centres around a fictional Hollywood star, who looks back over her life as told through her seven marriages, with plenty of twists, turns, scandals and, of course, heartbreaks along the way.

No casting decisions about the film have ever been disclosed publicly, but there’s long been a fan campaign for Jessica Chastain to play Celia St James, Evelyn’s main love interest in the book.

Oscar winner Rita Moreno has also repeatedly been mentioned as a possible contender to play modern-day Evelyn Hugo.