RatPac Press, a new joint venture from Hollywood director Brett Ratner and Running Press, is launching with its first title: Ben Mezrich's novel, Seven Wonders. The book, an adventure tale tied to the Seven Wonders of the World, is set for a spring 2014 publication, and has already been optioned for film by 20th Century Fox and Ratner's production company, RatPac Entertainment; the film is planned to be a summer action film anchoring a trilogy. Overall, RatPac Press will look to release titles ideal for Hollywood adaptation.
The new co-venture will publish both fiction and nonfiction. The Mezrich book, which marks the author's first novel in years, is the kind of commercial title RatPac will aim to find. As Ratner explained, Running Press's expertise in editorial and distribution "enables us to publish commercial books for a worldwide audience that we can also potentially turn into blockbuster films." Ratner added that Mezrich, whose previous books The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House were both turned into films (The Social Network and 21, respectively), has a novel in Seven Wonders that is a "very commercial and global book that will definitely translate to the big screen."
This is Ratner's second publishing venture. In 2009 he launched Rat Press, a small press imprint that published a series of film-related books.
