be Hollywood's biggest fan, but soon there could be a film in the works that even the crusading ex—attorney general might turn up to see. In The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Obey the Bible as Literally as Possible (S&S, 2007), Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs proposes to spend 365 days following the rules of the Bible as closely as he can. (Some New Yorkers might instead call that The Year of Living Hell.) Of course, times have changed since adulterers were met with a good stoning rather than a no-fault divorce (Jacobs's "literal-but-legal" solution: throw pebbles). With its Liar, Liar meets The Ten Commandments high-concept, Jacobs's brief 14-page proposal immediately caught the town's attention after it leaked. Jacobs met with several studios and producers, but Paramount moved the fastest and took it off the table. Jacobs's The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (S&S, 2004) is under option to Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld. ICM's Sloan Harris and Josie Freedman rep Jacobs.
Most of us would
just as soon forget our adolescent days, but Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig has no such qualms about revisiting his awkward youth. Feig goes back to school again with Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin (Three Rivers, June). The memoir chronicles the young Feig's experience of growing up unlaid in the sexed-up '70s. Though William Morris's Rob Carlson never submitted the book for film, producers stumbled across the book on their own and started inquiring about film rights. Feig, who plans to write and direct himself, is meeting with studios this week. Joni Evans reps Feig for lit.
Bad-boy director
Gregg Araki (The Living End; Doom) has been called many things: nihilist, provocateur, etc. Muse, however, is not one of them. But that's exactly the role he played to Scott Heim, author of 1995's Mysterious Skin (HarperCollins), the source material for Araki's recent indie hit of the same name. Editors hadn't heard much from Heim since his last novel, We Disappear, made the publishing rounds in the late '90s and failed to sell. His agent, William Morris's Dorian Karchmar, says his experience with Araki inspired Heim to give the book biz another shot. A "revitalized and reenergized" Heim dusted off the manuscript, did a heavy revision, and found a fan in HarperCollins's Alison Callahan, who bought the manuscript based on a partial. William Morris plans to wait for the full manuscript before submitting for film.
Briefs...
Pity Roman Polanski. Having just won a libel lawsuit against Vanity Fair for an article the magazine published about the Manson killings, the Academy Award— winning director may have to relive those dark days again courtesy of Hollywood. Scott Kosar, the writer of the grisly The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes, has optioned Ed Sanders's The Family, a nonfiction account of the Tate-LaBianca murders originally published in 1971 and reissued by Thunder's Mouth in 2002. Angela Cheng Caplan of Cheng Caplan Company co-agented on behalf of the James Fitzgerald Agency.
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