Todd Haynes to Direct ‘The Maids’ Starring Cate Blanchett as His Next Film

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Todd Haynes hasn't even released “De Noche” yet, but he's already planning his next film.

Speaking to Le Point, Haynes let it slip that his follow-up will be an adaptation of Jean Genet's Les Bonnes (“The Maids”), and that Cate Blanchett might be on board:

My next film — after the one I'm finishing, De Noche — will be an adaptation of Les Bonnes! I have a very particular approach to the story, I can't say anything obviously, but I've never seen this approach elsewhere... I think Cate Blanchett, who played the play on stage with Isabelle Huppert, will be in my film.

"I've never seen this approach elsewhere" is the kind of tease I like hearing from Haynes. This is a filmmaker who made a Dylan movie with six different Dylans, so when he says he's found a new angle on a 79-year-old play, I believe him.

For the uninitiated, Genet's 1947 play follows two sisters, Claire and Solange, who work as maids for a wealthy Madame and spend their evenings role-playing her humiliation and murder. It was loosely inspired by the 1933 Papin sisters case, in which two French maids killed their employer and her daughter. Class rage, sadomasochism, identity as performance — that’s Haynes’ wheelhouse!

Blanchett played Claire opposite Isabelle Huppert's Solange in Benedict Andrews' production for the Sydney Theatre Company in 2013, which then transferred to New York's Lincoln Center Festival in 2014. Haynes says she'll "be in" his film, which leaves open whether she reprises Claire or moves over to Madame. Either way, it would be their third collaboration after “I'm Not There” and “Carol,” the latter of which remains, for my money, one of the best films of the 2010s. Whether Huppert returns too is the obvious next question.

As for “De Noche,” the 1930s gay noir has had a rocky road. The project fell apart in 2024 when Joaquin Phoenix abruptly pulled out five days before production was due to begin. Pedro Pascal was then officially set to play a detective opposite Danny Ramirez as his younger lover, and filming wrapped in Mexico in April 2026. El País notes it's slated for a 2027 release. No doubt a Cannes premiere.

Haynes is the filmmaker behind such acclaimed works as "Safe," "Far From Heaven," "Carol," and "May December." He first drew attention with his 1991 feature debut, "Poison," which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and helped launch what became known as the New Queer Cinema movement, which then led to “Velvet Goldmine.”