EXCLUSIVE: Luckiest Girl Alive author Jessica Knoll‘s new bestselling thriller novel Bright Young Women is in the works for the small screen. Bruna Papandrea‘s Made Up Stories, Erik Feig’s Picturestart and Fifth Season have acquired the rights to the book to develop as a television series. Knoll will pen the adaptation and serve as executive producer.
The novel, inspired by true real-life events, tells the story of the women whose lives were forever changed by Ted Bundy’s cross-country killing sprees. It was published by Simon & Schuster’s Marysue Rucci Books on September 19 and quickly landed on the New York Times Best Seller list.
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Opening on the night of Bundy’s attack on a Florida State University sorority house in the early morning hours of 1978, the novel follows sorority president Pamela Schumacher as she seeks answers to questions that remain even after four decades, culminating in a new narrative about the so-called brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle—one that suggests that it was the women whose lives he cut short who were the exceptional ones.
The project will be overseen by Jeanne Snow and Casey Haver for Made Up Stories, and Samie Kim Falvey and Julia Hammer for Picturestart.
The deal reunites Knoll, Made Up Stories and Picturestart following their successful partnership on a feature film adaptation of Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive, which became the No. 1 movie on Netflix when it premiered in October.
“We are thrilled to re-team with Jessica Knoll on her brilliantly subversive new novel Bright Young Women after the career highlight that was producing Luckiest Girl Alive together. Jessica is the rare writer with the boldness and the skill to take on a true crime story that has been so mythologized in American culture that we’ve all accepted it as fact – until now. Bright Young Women is a powerful rallying cry for women everywhere, the kind of novel that unleashes a cathartic rage at how society gets the story wrong too often, and usually at the expense of women,” said Papandrea and Feig.
Added Knoll, “Eight years ago, I was a first-time novelist with ambitions of becoming a first-time screenwriter. Bruna and Erik believed in my voice and gave me that shot, and I remain in awe of their shrewd creative instincts and their drive for telling compelling, important stories that stick with you long after the credits roll. I can’t imagine adapting my new novel with anyone else, not least because Erik and Bruna are wildly talented partners—they also bring a sense of warmth and comradery to the development process, and I feel infinitely lucky to have them by my side.”
In addition to Bright Young Women and Luckiest Girl Alive, Knoll also is the author of novel The Favorite Sister. She is currently adapting I Think My Mother-in-Law is Trying to Kill Me based on the Reddit short story, which she will also executive produce, for Sony. Knoll is repped by CAA for film and television, WME for publishing, and Christine Cuddy at Kleinberg Lange Cuddy & Carlo LLP.
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