Margot Robbie developing Beautiful Things thriller with absurd/excellent premise

Robbie in The Big Short

Warner Bros and Margot Robbie have picked up the film rights to Gin Phillips’ upcoming novel Beautiful Things, according to Variety, with Robbie producing the thriller and potentially starring in it.

The book has only just been sold to publisher Viking, but the synopsis is a humdinger. I’ll divulge it piece by piece:

‘It centres on a mother and her son…’ Fair enough.

‘It centres on a mother and her son trapped in a zoo…’ Consider my interest piqued.

‘It centers on a mother and her son trapped in a zoo with a gunman on the loose.’

What! What madness is this! Why a zoo? Why is it called Beautiful Things? Will the gunman be picking off majestic animals one-by-one, and the mother and son must decide which creature is next? How exactly does one get trapped in a zoo?

These questions are a long way off being answered, with the movie having no details beyond its existence at this stage.

Robbie has starred in three Warner Bros films thus far - Focus, The Legend of Tarzan and Suicide Squad. She is currently executive producing and starring in a fourth based around her Suicide Squad character Harley Quinn, and has another lined up called Queen of the Air.