Hot Topics:

Par taking 'Hailey' tale

Michaels Goldwyn shingle to produce Tropper's 'After'

Inside Move: 'Legend' of Smith an early tale for WB

Inside Move: Clash of the exec pair

E! gets 'Pretty Wild'(1046 views)

Hollywood stems outflow(1033 views)

Jackson estate signs $200 million Sony deal(836 views)

Hollywood calls 'Truce' on war films(710 views)

Weinstein Co. milks 'Butter'(674 views)

Tiger Woods sets return to golf(556 views)

Paramount Pictures has acquired Jonathan Tropper's upcoming novel "After Hailey" for north of $1 million and will set it up with John Goldwyn and Lorne Michaels to produce through their studio-based Michaels Goldwyn shingle.

Gotham-based Sara Colleton will also produce.

Deal came after an intense bidding war that also included Warner Bros. and Fox 2000. Warner Bros. wanted to purchase the novel for Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way and Paula Weinstein's Spring Creek Prods., while Fox 2000 had Mark Waters and Jessica Tuchinsky in mind.

New Line Cinema also put in a bid on Tuesday in an effort to purchase the tome for Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson's Contrafilm.

In the end, however, it was Goldwyn and Michaels who won out thanks to Par's rich paycheck.

"After Hailey," due out in 2007 from Bantam Books, is about a young twentysomething man who falls in love with an older woman. The two marry and move to the suburbs where the woman dies, leaving him to raise her teenage son.

Book is Tropper's third novel and his third straight work optioned by Hollywood for the big-screen. His previous book "Everything Changes" is set up at Sony with Tobey Maguire and Wendy Finerman producing and his "Book of Joe" is at Plan B through Warner Bros.

Brillstein-Grey's Kassie Evashevski and Jon Liebman brokered the deal in association with Tropper's NYC-based reps, the Writers House. At Par, production prexy Alli Shearmur will oversee.