Earlier this year, Anne Hathaway was loosely tied to a bit of controversy in the film world: Shortly after signing on to Colossal, a movie described by director Nacho Vigalondo as “a serious Godzilla movie but I’ve got an idea that’s going to make it so cheap that you will feel betrayed,” the Japanese company that owns the rights to Godzilla sued the film’s producers, putting the project in limbo. Perhaps that’s why she’s signed on to star in a limited TV series from Entertainment One and the Mark Gordon Co. Also, being a bona fide movie star who makes a miniseries is something of a cool resume-builder these days.
Called The Ambassador’s Wife, the show is based on a new novel by Jennifer Steil about an American woman who is kidnapped in Yemen, a situation which causes all sorts of trouble for her British ambassador husband. For those worried about Hathaway sitting close to hot water again, no, this is not a ripoff of the Maggie Gyllenhaal-starring miniseries The Honorable Woman, in which a British woman gets kidnapped on a trip to Israel’s West Bank. Steil’s novel pulls from her own experiences as an ambassador’s wife, and unless readers are grossly misinterpreting her writing, there appear to be no Godzilla-esque characters central to the plot.
Hathaway will also serve as a producer, but no word yet on where or when The Ambassador’s Wife will land, or even who’s writing it. However, Gordon says it’s “an incredible story that pulls you in immediately and resonates with all of us based on the images and news headlines that are pervasive in our lives today,” so, according to him, you already like it.