Closer Comes Closer to Film Adaptation as Mike Nichols Set to Direct

By Ernio Hernandez
26 Feb 2003

Mike Nichols is set to direct the film adaptation of Patrick Marber's Closer, for Columbia Pictures, according to Variety reports.

Jude Law and Natalie Portman were mentioned to star in the screen adaption penned by the stage play's author. Scott Rudin and Robert Fox, who produced Closer in London and on Broadway will produce the film as well.

Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play, Closer opened March 25, 1999 at Broadway's Music Box Theatre following a London run at the Royal National Theatre. Playwright Marber also helmed the work which featured Anna Friel, Rupert Graves, Ciaran Hinds and Natasha Richardson.

Closer explores the ever-changing state of modern relationships through a quartet of lovers tangled in a web of love, lust, sex and betrayal. The play won the 1997 Evening Standard Best Comedy Award and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play.

Nichols, a film director known for works such as "The Graduate" and "Postcards from the Edge" and "The Birdcage" has brought many stage works to film incarnations including "Biloxi Blues," "Wit" and the upcoming HBO film adaptation of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America set to air later this year.