Who’s shopping what in Hollywood? Who’s sold what? Beginning this fall, PW will start running news about what manuscripts are circulating and what options have sold. Look for this column to start appearing regularly in September. For now, a look at some projects that are being discussed this summer.
Just out on submission from Lynn Pleshette at the The Pleshette Agency is Roland Merullo’s American Savior. The August title, from Algonquin, skewers the American political process with a quirky premise: Jesus appears on Earth and announces he’s running for the White House. The wild card third-party candidate, running on a platform to bring back kindness, could prove a spoiler in this, the ninth book from Merullo. Pleshette, who said some producers have already shown interest, thinks the book is a well-timed send-up of campaigning. And, if Kevin Costner’s Swing Vote, about a single dad who holds the deciding ballot in the presidential election, grabs audiences when it bows in August, the hunger for political satires could spike.
With Comic-Con just over, Judith Hansen of Hansen Literary is taking out HarperCollins’ newly repackaged trade paperback of Scott McCloud’s Zot! McCloud, best known for his theoretical works about the genre, Understanding Comics and Making Comics, spent six years on this story about a disenfranchised teen girl who falls for a hunk from an alternate universe.
Steve Fisher at APA is shopping Tana French’s just-published second novel from Viking, The Likeness. French won an Edgar for her debut, In the Woods, and, in this book, her wily Irish female detective, Cassie Maddox, is again investigating the homicide of a murdered college co-ed. Fisher is pitching the book as an ideal fit for a young actress.
Brendan Deneen, at Objective Entertainment, is shopping a sci-fi novella called Prime that he’s pitching as “Blade Runner meets The Matrix.” Deneen, who used to work in development at Dimension and Miramax/Weinstein Co. before co-founding Objective, said the book, by Nate Kenyon, is about “a grizzled gun for hire” trying to solve a series of technology-related murders. Prime is to be published by Sci-fi house Apex Publications.
If you have something out on submission you’d like to discuss, or want to share news of an option you’ve just sold, contact Rachel Deahl at rachel.deahl@reedbusiness.com.
