Elle Fanning Will Play Children's Author Margaret Wise Brown in 'Moonsong'
Elle Fanning will play Margaret Wise Brown, the children's author behind Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, in a new biopic called Moonsong: A Life in Seven Verses. Deadline reported the casting and the film's sales plans on 2 November 2026.
Rebecca Miller directs the film and wrote the screenplay. She drew on Leonard S. Marcus's biography Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon. The story is set in 1930s New York and follows Brown as she discovers her gift for writing stories for children.
The cast is building around Fanning. Julianne Moore plays the poet Michael Strange. Josh Hartnett plays 'Big Bill' Gaston. Emma Thompson, Sally Hawkins, Danny Huston, Robert Aramayo and Chloe Pirrie have also joined.
The film is also moving toward buyers. The sales company The Veterans will launch international sales at the American Film Market, the deal market held each November in Santa Monica, California, where distributors look for films to license in other countries. It will bring a sizzle reel, a short promotional video, and the screenplay. CAA Media Finance will represent the film's U.S. rights, meaning it will handle the sale of American distribution.
Brown's books have been read aloud at bedtime for generations, which is part of why a film about how she started writing them has a ready audience in mind. For now, the film's story sits in pre-sale form: a finished cast list, a script, and a pitch package heading into the market. A film's path to a cinema or streaming service usually begins in rooms like this one, long before any audience sees a frame.
