Olivia Wilde partners with A24 for series adaptations of A Visit From the Goon Squad & The Candy House

Olivia Wilde (Booksmart, Perfect) and A24 are teaming up to adapt Jennifer Egan’s best-selling novel A Visit From the Goon Squad and its sequel The Candy House, for television. Wilde is directing the series adaptation and executive producing with Jennifer Fox. A Visit From the Goon Squad is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel comprised of 13 interconnected stories with many characters revolving around Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant Sasha. Bennie was a punk rocker in his prime. The book explores Bennie and Sasha’s pasts alongside the lives they touch. Music fuels the story, hailed as a startling, exhilarating novel about self-destruction and redemption.

The adaptation is Wilde’s first television project as a director. A24 is known for delivering unique and award-winning films. Still, the studio recently dropped Beef onto Netflix to rave reviews. Beef stars Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as two people who let a road rage incident burrow into their minds and slowly consume their thoughts and actions.

Wilde’s latest feature, Don’t Worry Darling, earned approximately $90M worldwide, though the film was not without controversy. Reports of flared tempers on the set haunted the film’s production and PR cycle, with news outlets and tabloid rags paying attention to questionable behavior between Wilde, Jason Sudeikis, and Harry Styles. Aside from the Wilde-Styles-Sudeikis triangle, the film’s female lead, Florence Pugh, was noticeably absent from promotional campaigns leading up to the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere. Many assumed Pugh and Wilde had a falling out, though the depths of the situation remain a mystery.

Wilde has an untitled Sony/Marvel project in development, which many believe to be a Spider-Woman solo film revolving around the classic Marvel character Jessica Drew. Wilde is also in pre-production on Perfect, a biopic about the American gymnast Kerri Strug, who tries to overcome a terrible injury to compete for a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics. The project stars McKenna Grace and Thomasin McKenzie.

Have you read Egan’s novels? The music industry is a dark and dangerous place. The environment is ideally suited to Wilde’s directing style, with an opportunity to cast several stars in memorable roles. We’ll bring you more details as this project develops.