Netflix to adapt D.H. Lawrence’s controversial classic Lady Chatterley’s Lover into a feature film

The streaming giant Netflix, which is known for its varied content, is coming up with another original. The OTT platform made an official announcement on its Twitter handle on August 18, that it's adapting D.H. Lawrence’s controversial classic, Lady Chatterley’s Lover into a feature film. The film will star The Crown’s Princess Diana, Emma Corrin as the titular Lady Constance Chatterley. Jack O’ Connell, known as James Cook in Skins and Pukey Nicholls in This is England has been signed on too. Netflix is all set to up the ante of its slew of steamy movies with this feature.

D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover is among the most famous or infamous erotica. It chronicles the narrative of the aristocratic, genteel Lady Chatterley who awakens to her sexual desires while having an affair with the gamekeeper employed at her husband’s estate. Constance Chatterley pursues love and happiness without giving two hoots about Victorian propriety or social mores befitting a ‘lady’ in her day and age, sparking scandal and dramatic consequences along the way.

Have a look at the announcement officiating the adapatation here.

Matthew Duckett, known for his act in A Confession, will join the cast alongside Corrin and O’Connell. The film will be helmed by the French actor, producer, and director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, who has directed The Mustang and Mrs America. Academy Award-nominee David Magee, known for Neverland and Life of Pie will adapt the screenplay from D.H. Lawrence’s novel. 

When it was published in 1928, the novel was deemed so salacious that it created a huge furore over its erotic passages, and was banned altogether in the UK for three decades by the English court. The ban was lifted in 1960. An unexpurgated edition was published in the UK only in 1960, but the controversy around it refused to burn out, as it led to a landmark obscenity trial against Penguin Books. In a landmark judgement after a six-day trial and mulling over the matter for three hours, the novel was cleared off any charge of obscenity and sold all the 2,00,000 copies on the very first day when it was published a month from the trial.

ALSO READ: Emma Corrin recreates Princess Diana's performance of All I Ask of You for The Crown's unseen clip 

Coming back to the Netflix film adaptation, if you are a fan of erotica, you must have watched Netflix offerings such as Sex/Life, Newness, Oh Ramona, or the arguably sexiest one, Bridgerton, but here’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover to push the envelope further, given the premise of the film.

However, the release date of the film is yet to be announced.