EXCLUSIVE: Edmund Donovan (Late Fame) has landed a starring role alongside Dakota and Elle Fanning in The Nightingale, TriStar’s feature adaptation of the global bestseller by Kristin Hannah, where the sisters will share the screen for the first time.
No word yet on the role to be played by Donovan. Selling more than 11 million copies worldwide after being translated into 45 languages, The Nightingale is a work of historical fiction telling the story of two sisters who dare to embark on separate, dangerous paths during World War II in the fight for survival, love and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France.
Since debuting in 2015, the novel has become a cultural touchstone, hitting #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list and spending a combined 165 weeks on the NYT Best Sellers list across formats. It also dominated NPR’s fiction chart for 45 weeks and was named a Reese’s Book Club Pick in March 2023. In March 2025, a special 10th Anniversary Edition soared to #2 on the NYT hardcover list. The book is so hot, it’s already sold a million copies, just a couple of weeks into the new year.
To Leslie‘s Michael Morris is directing the feature take from a script by Dana Stevens (The Woman King), with Elizabeth Cantillon producing for The Cantillon Company, alongside Elle and Dakota Fanning and Brittany Kahan Ward for Lewellen Pictures, and Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter for Hello Sunshine. Nicole Brown and Shary Shirazi are overseeing for TriStar.
The Nightingale has had a decently long journey to the screen, beginning with TriStar’s move to lock down film rights in 2015, with Ann Peacock coming on to write and Cantillon to produce. (The latter has been with the project ever since.) Writer-director Michelle MacLaren and co-writer John Sayles attached to a later iteration, with the Fannings initially coming on to star in a version helmed by Mélanie Laurent from Stevens’ script in 2019. Just when it looked like the project would get off the ground, the Covid pandemic resulted in numerous delays, with Laurent stepping back to attend to other projects in the interim.
We first reported on TriStar reigniting the project with To Leslie‘s Morris at the helm last July. The film is now slated for release on February 12, 2027.
Most recently seen starring opposite Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee in Late Fame, which premiered to critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival, Donovan also recently appeared in the Apple Original Film Echo Valley, starring opposite Sydney Sweeney and Julianne Moore. Other recent credits include the 2024 Sundance pic Your Monster, as well as Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s A24 pic Civil War alongside Kirsten Dunst. Breaking out with his performance in Samuel D. Hunter’s play Greater Clements, which earned him an Obie Award, a Drama Desk Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award, Donovan is repped by UTA, Entertainment 360, and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.