Screenwriter Sam Harper is the new family guy.
Twentieth Century Fox has hired Harper to pen a second installment of last year's hit "Cheaper by the Dozen."
And Disney-based producer-director Adam Shankman has snapped up Harper's latest pitch "Overparenting," even as he's awaiting Harper's rewrite on animated chestnut "The Jetsons," which is set up at Warner Bros. as a possible Shankman helming vehicle.
While no cast deals have been made yet, Harper is planning on delivering a second "Cheaper" by mid-summer to Fox brass. Fox production exec Vanessa Morrisson is overseeing the pic for its producer, Robert Simonds.
"Cheaper," based on the book by Frank B. and Ernestine Gilbreth, propagated a healthy $136 million domestically after its opening at Christmas last year.
Like Fox, which just paid high-six figures for Harper's new take on "Cheaper," Disney has paid high-six figure coin to pick up Harper's "Overparenting," a broad comedy about the anxious parents of a first grader who spend Christmas break with their son's new school friend and his parents.
"Overparenting" will be produced by Shankman and his producing partner Jennifer Gibgot and is a potential directing vehicle for Shankman. Pic is being overseen at Disney by exec Kristin Burr and by Offspring's VP Matt Mizel.
Meanwhile, Shankman and Gibgot have set up "The Fiancee" at Disney for Offspring. Pitch, which sold for low-six figures, is being penned by Jennifer Robinson and Dyanne Stempel. "Fiancee" tells the story of a woman engaged to the seemingly perfect guy -- who calls off the wedding. When her family takes him under their wing, the only way she can get him out of her life is to find him another girlfriend.
Scribes Robinson and Stempel most recently sold "Hostile Makeover" to U-based Imagine Entertainment. "Fiancee" is being overseen by Mizel and Disney production exec Karen Glass.
Currently, "Bringing Down the House" helmer Shankman is in pre-production on the Vin Diesel starrer "The Pacifier," a family actioner being made in partnership with Spyglass and Disney, which he and Gibgot will exec produce.
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