‘The Girl On the Train’ Debuts Chilling Official Trailer Featuring a Distraught Emily Blunt; Paula Hawkins Joins Top Ranks of World’s Highest-Paid Authors

‘The Girl On The Train’ film adaptation recently debuted its chilling official trailer featuring Emily Blunt in the lead role of Rachel, a distraught alcoholic struggling to cope with her divorce. Meanwhile, the original novel’s author Paula Hawkins joins Forbes’ list of highest-paid authors of 2016.

According to the Independent, Universal Pictures recently unveiled director Tate Taylor’s upcoming cinematic adaptation of Hawkins’ best-selling novel of the same name featuring Blunt in the lead role. In the trailer, Blunt’s Rachel recalls her fascination with watching a seemingly perfect couple – Megan and Scott - from the window of a train as she takes her daily commute in New York City. The two coincidentally live only a few doors down from Rachel’s estranged husband Tom and his new wife Anna.

However, things take a suspenseful turn as the woman suddenly disappears. Rachel takes it upon herself to find Megan after she wakes up bruised without a single memory of the events that took place that night. Rachel begins to suspect that she may have a role in Megan’s disappearance.

Blunt admitted that the role of Rachel has been one of the most challenging performances she has ever done. According to Vanity Fair, she said, “I just love that it’s about addiction and loneliness and voyeurism and what we think we see and don’t see. I think it’s very relatable.”

Taylor praised Blunt’s work saying, “She was willing to go to the very depths of the emotional spectrum. I don’t think that any beauty campaigns are going to be coming Emily’s way because of this movie, but nonetheless you will be riveted when you see what she has done.”

Blunt is joined by Haley Bennett as Megan, Luke Evans as Scott, Justin Theroux as Tom, Rebecca Ferguson as Anna. Allison Janney also joins the cast as a detective assigned to Megan’s case. During a previous interview, Janney revealed that the upcoming film will contain “interesting twists”.

She said, “There’ll be some interesting twists. People are usually so disappointed with book-to-movie translations . . . but I think it’s good that we’re not being too precious about it, and adapting it into a film that uses the medium to show the book off in the best light, whether that means adding scenes, taking away scenes, changing other stuff.”

The original novel was first published on January 2015. It took the number one spot at The New York Times’ fiction best-sellers list of the year with many reviews hailing it as the next ‘Gone Girl’, a thriller novel written by Gillian Flynn.

According to Forbes, author Paula Hawkins has joined 2016’s ranking of highest-paid authors following an estimated 11 million copies of ‘Girl On The Train’ sold worldwide. Hawkins earned $10 million since the release of her novel in 2015.

James Patterson of the ‘Alex Cross’ book series holds the top spot at $95 million followed by Jeff Kinney of ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ fame at $19.5 million. ‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling completes the top three with $19 million.

‘The Girl On the Train’ is an upcoming mystery-thriller film scheduled to be released on October 7, 2016. It is produced by Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks SKG, Marc Platt Productions, and Reliance Entertainment. It is distributed by Universal Pictures in the United States.