A new film based on Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit is in the works with a cast including Judi Dench, Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, and Leslie Mann. Ed Hall will direct, according to Deadline, with writer Piers Ashworth set to adapt the 1941 comedy for the screen.
The play, about an author who (thanks to an eccentric medium) accidentally conjures the ghost of his first wife, was last on Broadway in 2009. Stevens will star as the writer, with Mann as his deceased first wife, Elvira. Dench will take Madame Arcati, on the role immortalized on film by Margaret Rutherford and most recently played on Broadway by Angela Lansbury, who took home a Tony Award. (The play was also musicalized for 1964's High Spirits.)
James Spring, Meg Leonard, and Nick Moorcroft of Fisherman's Friends will produce alongside Hilary Bevan Jones, Peter Snell, and Tuni Pinnolis. The project hails from Fred Films and Powder Keg Pictures, in a association with British Lion Films.