The Lady in the Van "The Lady in the Van" was greenlit on 3 June 2014, with TriStar Productions and BBC Films working together to make the film adaptation of Alan Bennett's West End hit. TriStar won the film rights to handle worldwide distribution, while the BBC was the first to show the film on television in the UK. The involvement of Maggie Smith and Nicholas Hytner was announced simultaneously with the film, but they were attached to the project as early as 9 May (coincidentally Bennett's 80th birthday). Both of them had collaborated with Bennett in the past; Hytner on "The Madness of King
Lady in the Water Nickelodeon's "" television series, which also received overwhelmingly negative reviews. CNN's Tom Charity, among others, has called "Lady in the Water" the worst film of 2006. It was listed by "Variety" as one of the ten "biggest (financial) losers" of 2006. Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" wrote that though the film is "built on too much ponderous self-regard…[t]here is a good chunk of "Lady in the Water" that is simply too well made and affectingly acted to dismiss as a mere exercise in arrogance." Conversely, the film was ranked 6th in the influential film magazine "Cahiers du cinéma"s top