Will Michelle Williams Star as Nellie Forbush in the South Pacific Film Remake?

Three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams has been offered the lead role in an in-development remake of the 1959 movie musical South Pacific, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail. Williams is in talks to star as Nellie Forbush, an American Navy nurse who falls in love with an expatriate French plantation owner during World War II.

South Pacific is still in the early development stages, but Michael Mayer is expected to direct and author Lynn Grossman has written a screenplay. The film's producers are also eager to sign up Justin Timberlake and Hugh Jackman, following his Oscar-nominated performance in Les Misérables. This version of the musical will reportedly incorporate the songs more organically by hewing closer to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by James Michener that first inspired the stage show.

The original Broadway production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical opened in 1949 and was an immense critical and box-office hit, starring Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin as the leads. South Pacific won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and it is the only musical production to win Tony Awards in all four acting categories. The 2008 Broadway revival, starring Kelli O'Hara, Matthew Morrison, Danny Burstein and Paulo Szot, was also a strong success, winning seven Tonys including Best Musical Revival.