Kristen Roupenian’s now infamous yarn, Cat Person, follows the story of a 20-year-old woman named Margot as she forms a romantic relationship with a 34-year-old man named Robert.

The story eventually leads to Margot consenting to having sex with Robert: however, it is later revealed that she only goes through with it to avoid hurting his feelings and creating an uncomfortable situation.

In a world still reeling from the ongoing #MeToo movement and the resulting conversation around consent, it was perhaps unsurprising that so many women came forward online to reveal how “painfully relatable” they found the story.

And, of course, there’s no denying that the story also had something of a horror subtext – particularly for women who identified with Margot.

So it makes sense that Roupenian has penned a horror screenplay – and A24 has already picked it up for production. And this news alone is an undeniably big deal. 

Think about it: the woman behind the New Yorker’s most-read fiction story of 2017 has written a movie, and the company behind Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird – which scored a 100% ‘fresh’ rating out of 170 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (remember: no other film in history has ever maintained such a unanimously glowing pedigree) – is producing it.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the title of Roupenian’s screenplay is Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. However, little is known about the plot at this point – other than, like Cat Person, it “shows heightened sensitivity to character development and social dynamics in a subversive way”.

The publication adds that the script offers up “a shrewd character study where mystery and deep-seated scares” blend in such a way “to make a horror movie that could also be culturally relevant”.

We don’t doubt it – especially if it’s anything like Cat Person. And hopefully we won’t have too long to wait for the film to hit cinemas, either: while there is no release date as of yet, THR says that “the plan is to fast-track the script to production”.

Images: iStock