Jennifer Lawrence will play a Hollywood power… | Little White Lies

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Jen­nifer Lawrence will play a Hol­ly­wood pow­er agent for Pao­lo Sorrentino

09 Aug 2021

Words by Charles Bramesco

Woman wearing sunglasses with curly blonde hair in a city street.
Woman wearing sunglasses with curly blonde hair in a city street.
The real-life Sue Mengers’ client list includ­ed Bar­bra Streisand, Cher and Michael Caine.

Over the past few years, things seem to have slowed down for Jen­nifer Lawrence, her appear­ances in new films slimmed to one per year, if that. Her self-imposed hia­tus will soon come to an end in grand fash­ion, how­ev­er, with key roles in upcom­ing films by Adam McK­ay (the cli­mate change satire Don’t Look Up), rook­ie direc­tor Lila Neuge­bauer (the mil­i­tary PTSD dra­ma Red, White, and Water) and Pao­lo Sor­renti­no (the crime thriller Mob Girl).

Her come­back of sorts won’t be a flash in the pan, either, based on today’s news that she’s already set­ting up anoth­er project with Sor­renti­no. Vari­ety reports that Lawrence will reteam with the Ital­ian direc­tor on a to-be-titled film that would see her star­ring as quin­tes­sen­tial Hol­ly­wood super agent Sue Mengers.

The take-no-pris­on­ers tal­ent rep han­dled some of the biggest names of the 70s, her client list includ­ing Bar­bra Streisand, Peter Bog­danovich, Michael Caine, Cher, Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, Faye Dun­away, Bri­an De Pal­ma, Bob Fos­se, and on and on. She also made a name for her­self by cofound­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Cre­ative Man­age­ment empire still stand­ing today, elbow­ing her way into a boys’ club at a time when women were still most­ly restrict­ed to sec­re­tar­i­al positions.

The film will focus on this fem­i­nist bent to her achieve­ments, reliv­ing the wild times of New Hol­ly­wood with a mod­ern polit­i­cal con­scious­ness. As Vari­ety notes, many of these famous faces from the era will pro­vide roles for today’s stars, so fin­gers crossed for a Lady Gaga appear­ance as an in-her-prime Babs.

At present, Apple and Net­flix have entered a bid­ding war for rights to the pack­age, with Apple nam­ing an eye-pop­ping price tag of $80 mil­lion, Lawrence’s fee being a whop­ping $20 mil­lion. Mengers her­self would be proud of who­ev­er made that happen.

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