Millennium Films has optioned CNN correspondent Jake Tapper's The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (Little Brown, 2012), with Rod Lurie (The Contender) attached to direct. The nonfiction title is about an American outpost that was attacked in Afghanistan in 2009; it chronicles how the American soldiers, who were outnumbered, prevailed against Taliban fighters. (Hollywood Reporter)
The forthcoming Alpha Girls (Currency, 2019) by Julian Guthrie, about the often-unheralded women who helped build some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies, has been optioned by Welle Entertainment after an auction that included several major players. The book, Deadline said, which was acquired by Crown's Currency imprint in a sizable deal, was pitched as "Hidden Figures meets The Social Network."(Deadline)
Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg (Counterpoint, 2014), a novel about a hit man for the Chicago mob who goes into hiding, has been optioned by Caryn Mandabach Productions. (Publishers Maketplace)
Gotham Group has optioned film rights to the novel Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown (Spiegel & Grau, July), about a woman who vanishes on a hike. (Deadline)
Legendary Films has optioned The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez (Tor, 2008), about a robot who gets caught up in a kidnapping plot (Pub Mktpl)
Correction: This story has been updated from its original version to reflect the fact that Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg is fiction, not nonfiction. Also, the hit man in the book does not enter the witness protection program, but does go into hiding.
