Rudin
Scott Rudin will team with New Line Cinema and Dave Eggers to produce Eggers' best-selling memoir, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."
While formal negotiations have not yet begun, New Line and Rudin ended a videoconference meeting on Friday with intentions to negotiate a deal.
Although it's possible that New Line could partner with sister company Warner Bros. Pictures or Rudin's home base of Paramount Pictures to co-finance the film, New Line hopes to keep "Genius" at a budget that would allow it to handle the project solo.
"Rudin is fantastic with the adaptations of challenging books," Emmerich told
Daily Variety.
The next step is to hire a screenwriter. Reps for New Line met with Rudin and established a mutually agreed upon list of potential writers to undertake the adaptation. New Line hopes to put the project into production next year, with exec VP production Lynn Harris overseeing the project.
It was more than a year ago when then- production prexy Michael De Luca spearheaded New Line's acquisition of the book's film rights for a staggering $2 million. The pact included roughly $1 million in potential bonuses for Eggers (
Daily Variety, Nov. 15, 2000).
Several factors may have contributed to New Line's slow development. In addition to De Luca's ankling of New Line in January 2001, the full force of the minimajor's energies was squarely focused on "Lord of the Rings."
Production president Toby Emmerich is now aggressively moving forward with a number of high-profile projects at New Line, including the rat tale "Willard."
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