Katherine Heigl To Form ‘The Knitting Circle’ With HBO

With “Killers” tanking and her next effort “One For The Money” relegated to the critical wasteland of a January 27, 2012 release date, has America fallen out of love with Katherine Heigl? That remains to be seen, but clearly the actress is on a bit of a slide these days and she’s hoping the creatively encouraging home of HBO can right the ship, but too bad she’s taking the most boring project ever over to the cable titan.

Deadline reports that Heigl will produce and star in “The Knitting Circle,” a film based off the book by Ann Hood and we’ll let Amazon summarize the plot for you: “After the sudden loss of her only child, Mary Baxter joins a knitting circle in Providence, Rhode Island, as a way to fill the empty hours and lonely days. The women welcome her, each teaching Mary a new knitting technique and, as they do, revealing their own personal stories of loss, love, and hope. Eventually Mary is able to tell her own story of grief and in so doing reclaims her love for her husband, faces the hard truths about her relationship with her mother, and finds the spark of life again.” Yep, you better get out the hankies.

Craig Wright (“Dirty Sexy Money,” “Six Feet Under“) will pen the adaptation and we hope there is more to the story that what we’ve just summarized. We’re not sure why Heigl couldn’t have set this up at a regular studio and conversely, we’re not sure what they usually edgy HBO sees in the material but perhaps there’s more than meets the eye here? We think Heigl needs to be trying to do something desperately different rather than stick in the very comfortable rom-com/dramedy wheelhouse she’s mined tirelessly. No word yet on when this will lens but Heigl will next be seen along with a bajillion other people in Garry Marshall’s ensemble thingy “New Year’s Eve” which hits on December 9th.