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Reese Witherspoon must be frustrated. Described by The Wall Street Journal as “one of the most influential literary tastemakers in the book-to-screen business”, the 40-year-old actress is known for turning over half a billion dollars and earning three Oscar nominations for optioning Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild and Gillian Flynn’s thriller Gone Girl before they were published. She did so just five months after launching her independent production company Pacific Standard. So when The Girl On The Train film trailer was released on April 20 – a book Witherspoon raved about on her Instagram over a year ago – surely she was kicking herself that she didn’t add this to her 26 projects she has on the go.

Witherspoon founded Pacific Standard with Australian producer Bruna Papandrea in 2011 after they both grew tired of the tediously monotonous roles women were being offered via screenplay; wives, girlfriends, damsels – it was all bland. Together, their aim was to look for books with complex, strong and interesting female leads, ones who may engage in self destructive behaviour, ones who might not be the most trusted, scripts where females can be the victim or the vixen.

“I’m on a crusade to find a dynamic, female character, whether she’s likeable or not,” Witherspoon told the WSJ. “Likeable puts women in a very small box.”

As far as gambles go, Wild and Gone Girl well and truly ensured Witherspoon and Papandrea they had the eye for good grit lit. In 2012, as they began the hunt for the right studios to produce these screenplays, the two novels reached number one on The New York Times best-seller list at the same time (in the nonfiction and fiction categories respectively). As these deals were being made, there was an unknown and broke writer across the Atlantic ocean in London penning the next big amnesia thriller. Her name was Paula Hawkins and her novel: The Girl On The Train.

As The New York Times acknowledges, novelists such as Megan Abbott, Tana French, Harriet Lane and Gillian Flynn are all redefining contemporary crime fiction. They explore “complex women and create suspense with subtle psychological developments and shifts in relationships instead of procedural plot points and car chases.” We can’t ignore that both of Pacific Standard’s early titles helped thrust Hawkin’s novel into this popular new genre spotlight. It took four months to write the first half of The Girl On The Train before publishers began a bidding war. The genre was the hot new thing and Hawkin’s protagonist, Rachel – flawed in all her drunken gin-fuelled benders, unreliability and depression – was the character Pacific Standard had been calling out for. So why didn’t they bite?

The answer is not known. Was the company one of the bidders who lost out? Was Witherspoon too busy filming for her HBO series Big Little Lies? Did one of her four staff read Hawkin’s offering but not pass it onto her for a second review? Was the protagonist too close to Pacific Standard’s other signing Luckiest Girl In The World (a novel by debut author Jessica Knoll published on May 12)?

Whatever the reason, it’s a damn shame, for Witherspoon anyway. This pairing really could have been a match made in book-to-screen heaven. And Rachel, the poster child for everything Witherspoon and Papandreas work for.

The Girl On The Train is in now available for purchase on Digital. Rent or Buy on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital on January 25

 

I don’t know who you are #PaulaHawkins but you kept me up all night reading! #TheGirlOnTheTrain #PageTurner #BookClub ? #RWBookClub

A photo posted by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon) on

Cover image: Getty Images