Producer John H. Williams at Vanguard Films (Shrek!) has optioned The Dream Factory Starring Anna & Henry, by Bjorn Sortland with pictures by Lars Elling, an adventure that takes two kids through notable 20th-century movies; Stephen Moore and Brian Dreyfus of the Paul Kohner agency represented Adam Lerner and Carolrhoda Books, the publisher, in the deal; Lerner made a similar deal with Williams for Shrek! when the former was at FSG.... French publisher Calmann-Levy's rights director, Heide Warnecke, has a dramatic picture book by Iranian photographer Reza whose title translates as Massoud—From the Russians to the Taliban; it's an account of the assassinated Northern Alliance leader in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud. English-language rights are still available, and it could be arranged for Sebastian Junger, a recent collaborator with the photographer, to write a preface—though that would require a separate negotiation.... Shaye Areheart at Harmony bought a posthumous book by British cult humorist Douglas Adams from London agent Ed Victor; it's The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time and contains chapters of an unfinished novel as well as various essays and ruminations, and will be published next May.... Talking of Ed Victor, his diet book The Obvious Diet, which helped the burly agent lose 30 pounds in six months, was bought at auction by Arcade's Jeannette Seaver, who took U.S. rights from Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown U.K.
