Brendan Deneen, at Objective Entertainment, is shopping film rights to Bestial, a debut novel by William D. Carl published by Permuted Press in June. The book, set in a post-apocalyptic Cincinnati, Ohio, follows four strangers--a thief, a bank teller, a housewife and a runaway--who are the sole survivors of a catastrophic event that turns everyone else in the city into flesh-eating monsters. Deneen, who's pitching to studios as well as production companies, says it's "28 Days Later with werewolves."
Jessica Regel at Jean V. Naggar is shopping film rights to the debut novel by art historian Sheramy Bundrick, Sunflowers. The book, which Avon bought over the summer and plans to drop in fall 2009, ruminates on the recipient of Van Gogh’s ear; after the artist infamously snipped it off while living in the French town of Arles, he gave it to a local prostitute named Rachel. (In Bundrick’s novel, Rachel falls for the mad painter.) Barbara Braun sold the lit rights and Regel is handling subsidiary rights as well as film; Regel is pitching the book as fodder for something "in the tradition of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Frida."
