Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Catherine Hardwicke will direct The Bitch Posse, a Tristine Skyler-scripted adaptation of the Martha O’Connor novel published in 2006 by St. Martin’s Press. The film is being produced by Miranda Bailey and Matthew Leutwyler through their Ambush Entertainment banner, which most recently produced and financed the IFC Films release Super. Also producing are Virginia Madsen and Karly Meola, whose production company Title IX optioned the book.

Hardwicke, who most recently helmed Red Riding Hood, has showed a flair for teen angst in the first Twilight, Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown. Here, there is angst to spare. The book focuses on three friends, Cherry, Amy and Rennie, high school seniors who come from troubled homes and form a dangerous alliance called the Bitch Posse. Something occurs that rips apart the friendship and haunts them into adulthood. The book switches back and forth from those high school years to their adult lives where one is in a mental institution, the other is a promiscuous writer and the third suffers through a loveless marriage.