Move Over, Jane Austen
With such timeless (and cinema-ready) characters as Jane Eyre and Heathcliff, the works of the Brontë sisters may never be out of vogue in Hollywood—a fact hardly lost on Orchard Pictures' Jen Small. The budding feature producer has optioned the rights to Jennifer Vandever's first novel, The Brontë Project (published last month by Shaye Areheart Books), a witty romp in the style of Karen Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club (currently still in development at John Calley Productions for Sony). The story revolves around Sara Frost, a Charlotte Brontë scholar who discovers her Victorian subject may have more to teach her than she initially realizes. Asked to consult on a film about the literary sisters, she eventually finds herself falling for the project's producer. Vandever will adapt her own novel for the screen, and Nisha Ganatra (Cake, a 2006 release) is attached to direct. Curtis Brown's Holly Frederick negotiated the deal on behalf of Kirsten Manges of the Kirsten Manges Literary Agency.
Roll 'em, Ramona
Ramona Forever, indeed. The infamous Beverly Cleary character and spunky Klickitat Street resident is finally getting the Big Screen treatment after first being introduced to readers as Beezus's pest of a younger sister more than 50 years ago. In a seven-figure deal, the film rights to the character Ramona Quimby have been optioned by Fox 2000 and Denise DiNovi Productions (which also developed AnnBrashares's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for Warner Bros. this past summer). After being inundated by film proposals over the years, Cleary finally gave the nod to DiNovi Productions; she found their treatment to be the most faithful to Ramona's unique personality. Alexandra Rushfield and Jennifer Konner, who have both written for the television series What I Like About You and Undeclared, will write the screenplay.
Correction: The title of Marc Levy's novel, which inspired the film Just Like Heaven (Hollywood Reader, Oct. 31), is If Only It Were True (Atria, 2000). e-mail:HollywoodReader@gmail.com
