Adaptation of Alice Seabold’s Memoir ‘Lucky’ Cancelled by Netflix

Netflix has cancelled plans to adapt Alice Sebold’s memoir Lucky.

The memoir concerns Seabold’s rape when she was 18-years-old, but after the conviction of Anthony Broadwater was overturned recently, the streaming service has turned their backs.

Anthony Broadwater spent 16 years in prison for the crime in 1982 after Sebold identified him as her rapist on the witness stand. Microscopic hair analysis by an expert has also been rejected now, and Broadwater was cleared in late November 2021 of raping Sebold.

“I’m not going to sully this proceeding by saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ That doesn’t cut it,” said the county district attorney, William Fitzpatrick. “This should never have happened.”

Netflix had been in the process of adapting Lucky, to star Victoria Pedretti (You), but when Tim Mucciante came on board as executive producer, he “started poking around and trying to figure out what really happened”, and didn’t like what he saw.

The publisher Scribner declined to comment on the overturned conviction but instead said:

“Neither Alice Sebold nor Scribner has any comment. Scribner has no plans to update the text of Lucky at this time.”

“I never, ever, ever thought I would see the day that I would be exonerated,”” said Broadwater after the ruling.