Lionsgate Motion Picture Group President Erin Westerman on Leveraging Female Audience Momentum for ‘The Housemaid’

In Hollywood, nothing ever goes according to plan. But when Lionsgate optioned the rights to an independently published novel called “The Housemaid” in 2022, the studio had no idea just how perfectly the stars would align to bring this project to fruition.

First the novel, by Freida McFadden, exploded. The story of a young woman who becomes a live-in housemaid for a couple offered twists and turns and delicious thrills, and book readers bought it in droves. Then screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine wrote a first draft of a movie adaptation that was so pitch-perfect, Lionsgate greenlit the movie on the spot.

So the studio went to its first choice to anchor the cast,…