Netflix is keeping in the novel adaptation game with its upcoming romance film, The Bodyguard. Not to be confused with the melodramatic

1992 blockbuster starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, the new project is an adaptation of the 2022 novel by Katherine Center, and

it may have just landed a familiar star for the streaming service. Jared Padalecki has reportedly been cast as the male lead, bringing him

 

 

back to the streaming home of his beloved comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls and its 2016 reunion miniseries, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. If confirmed, he’d be set to join Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester in the feature, which is set to begin filming in Canada this December.

The Bodyguard centers on a world-famous movie star (Padalecki) suffering from the presence of a dangerous stalker in his life. To protect himself, he hires a professional bodyguard (Meester) to watch his back. When he decides to head home to his family’s ranch in Montana for the holidays, though, he has to devise a plan to keep the worrying situation under wraps. Throughout his visit, he needs his protection to pretend to be his girlfriend, creating humorous complications that could potentially blossom into something far more real. Notably, the film switched locations from Texas to Montana, though it’s unknown at this time how else the story will change from book to screen.

 

 

For the past year, Netflix has had its crosshairs on The Bodyguard. The streamer optioned the novel back in 2024 after finding success adapting Center’s 2015 novel, Happiness for Beginners, into a film starring Bridesmaids’s Ellie Kemper and Yellowstone’s Luke Grimes as its lead couple. No other stars are attached to join Padalecki and Meester at this time, but Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, who also helmed the Sofia Carson-led hit Purple Hearts on the platform, will be behind the camera. She’s set to direct from a screenplay written by Grant Scharbo, Richard Keith, and Erin Cardillo.

Beyond being a return to Netflix, Padalecki is also taking on his first feature role in over ten years with The Bodyguard. His last appearance on the big screen came in 2015, when he joined Vincent D’Onofrio and Fred Armisen, among others, in the English cast of the French animated fantasy film, Phantom Boy. The last time he was shown in live-action, meanwhile, came in 2009 with Marcus Nispel’s remake of Friday the 13th. It’ll be a welcome turn for the star after years of garnering fame on television between Supernatural, Walker, and, next year, Prime Video’s The Boys. He’ll have a good screen partner in Meester, who established herself as a Gossip Girl standout and has more recently found roles in The CW’s quirky comedy Good Cop/Bad Cop, Prime Video’s holiday romance EXmas, and Season 2 of Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers.