This week in Page to Screen--PW's weekly column tracking film rights circulating in Hollywood--an aquatic YA series by a debut novelist and a turn-of-the-century marital thriller make the rounds.
Stephen Moore at the Paul Kohner Agency is shopping the film rights to Kat Falls's aquatic YA series, Dark Life. Last week Scholastic Press acquired Life, along with another planned title from debut author Falls, at auction from Josh Adams at Adams Literary. Moore said at least one studio has shown "strong interest" in the book, which follows the adventures of a boy who, in a future world where humans have colonized the ocean floor, goes on an undersea adventure with a "topside" girl to find her missing brother.
At the Gotham Group, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein is out with film rights to Robert Goolrick's just-published novel from Algonquin, A Reliable Wife. Doug Stewart at Sterling Lord sold the book to Chuck Adams back in May 2007, shortly after Algonquin published Goolrick's debut, the memoir The End of the World As We Know It. This book, set just after the turn of the century in Wisconsin, follows a marriage born out of strange circumstance--a wealthy businessman places a newspaper personal advertisement for "a reliable wife." When said wife gets off the train from Chicago, scheming to take her new man for all he's worth, a clash of wills ensues; Algonquin is pitching the book as Wuthering Heights meets Rebecca.
