Ashley Avis to direct new Rose Garden film after ten-year rights quest

Ashley Avis will direct a new film version of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden after a decade-long effort to secure the rights.

Deadline reported the news exclusively on 19 October 2026. Avis will direct from her own script. She will produce alongside Edward Winters through her Winterstone Pictures banner, her own production company.

That wait is over. Ten years in the making, the rights deal clears the way for a fresh adaptation.

The source is Joanne Greenberg's 1964 novel. It was inspired by Greenberg's own experience as a young woman diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to Deadline. The book has sold millions of copies around the world.

It centres on Deborah Blau, a Jewish teenager who retreats into an elaborate kingdom built in her mind. In the story, Deborah is admitted to a clinic called Chestnut Lodge. There she forms a close bond with her psychiatrist, Dr Clara Fried.

This is not the first screen version. The novel previously inspired a 1977 film directed by Anthony Page and starring Kathleen Quinlan. That film earned an Academy Award nomination.

Avis is best known to many viewers for Black Beauty. She wrote and directed the Disney+ adaptation starring Mackenzie Foy, with Kate Winslet voicing the horse. She also directed Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, a documentary about wild horses that earned a Critics Choice Award nomination.

What makes this stand out is the long road to the rights. Chasing a beloved book for ten years is rare persistence, even by Hollywood standards.

Avis has a busy slate beyond this project. She is developing American Wolf, a film about the wolves of Yellowstone based on the book by Nate Blakeslee, with Appian Way. She has also set up a reimagining of Wim Wenders' romance City of Angels at Warner Bros.

Avis is represented by CAA and Ryan Goodell of Yorn, Levine, Barnes, according to Deadline. She signed with Sugar23 for management in 2023.

No cast or release date has been announced. For now, the news is the filmmaker, the book and the long-awaited green light.