Rachel Weisz To Play Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in “The Last Romantics”

Rachel Weisz has signed on to her next project, and it promises to be a tearjerker. The Oscar winner will play English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the big-screen. The Tracking Board reports that the biopic, titled “The Last Romantics,” follows Barrett Browning “during the Victorian era and her subsequent relationship with fellow writer Robert Browning.” The romance between the acclaimed wordsmiths was fraught, to say the least. TTB notes, “It was a passionate and tumultuous affair that ultimately led to her father disinheriting her.”

You can access some of the letters the lovers exchanged thanks to Baylor University. Their courtship resulted in over 574 letters.

The project originated as a spec script by Janet Dulin Jones (“What If God Were the Sun?”), who is currently adapting another period piece, Henry James’ novel “The Ambassadors.”

Two female producers are anchoring “The Last Romantics” — Jane Goldenring with Goldenring Productions (“Boychoir”) and Jane Wright (“Glorious 39”). No word on a director yet.

“Denial,” Weisz’s upcoming courtroom drama, also sees “The Lobster” actress portraying a famous figure. She stars as Deborah E. Lipstadt, the author of “History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier,” the non-fiction book on which “Denial” is based. The film centers on Lipstadt’s legal battle with author David Irving (Timothy Spall, “The King’s Speech”), who sued her in 1996. Irving accused Lipstadt of libel after she identified some of his works and statements as Holocaust denial. “Denial” has an Oscar-friendly release date of September 30.