The Big Money
After being inundated with news about the misdeeds of America's financial powerhouses, audiences may be glad to see a banker on the run. Jon Phillips, the antihero of Richard Hains's just released Chameleon (Beaufort), is the weaselly head bond trader for the Bank of Manhattan, who must fight for his life after his plan to fleece his employer fails and he finds himself at the mercy of Russian mobsters. Intrigued by the premise—and impressed with real-life investor and financier Hains's attention to detail—producer Izidore Codron (Hotel Rwanda) optioned the rights to the title. Trident Media's Paul Fedorko negotiated the deal.
Blind Ambition
James Holman, the blind 19th-century British naval officer at the heart of Jason Roberts's biography A Sense of the World (HarperCollins, May), may have traversed the world solo, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and even hunted slavers off the coast of Africa, but he hasn't caught Hollywood's eye... yet. Curtis Brown's Holly Frederick is currently shopping the Master and Commander—esque title around town for feature film rights, and says one producer has already taken it to a studio. Roberts is repped for lit by Michelle Tessler of the Tessler Literary Agency.
Briefs...
Natalie Portman has been tapped to headline an adaptation of Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl. She'll squeeze into the corset of the scheming Anne Boleyn, who replaces her sister, Mary, as the mistress (and eventual wife) of King Henry VIII (Eric Bana). The V for Vendetta star may also have another comic book tale in her future. Michael Chabon recently blogged that Portman is "a strong likelihood for the part of Rosa" in Paramount's adaptation of the author's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.... Billy Bob Thornton will star as a 1960s Minnesota janitor who takes two of his children on the road to find his third—a son convicted for killing two intruders in their home—in an adaptation of Leif Enger's elegiac 2001 novel Peace Like a River.
Correction: On "Books and Burglars" (June 19), film scout Riley Ellis brought The Book Thief by Markus Zusak to the attention of Fox 2000, and IPG's Jerry Kalajian negotiated the deal on behalf of Curtis Brown Australia and Inkwell Management.
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