Producing films is no longer just a boys club enterprise. Just ask former Paramount Executive Karen Rosenfelt who is wearing the producers cap with great success. Starting with The Devil Wear Prada, through Twilight, Twilight Saga:New Moon, Twilight Saga:Breaking Dawn Part 2, and currently The Book Thief, Rosenfelt is on a roll. And for her next project, she has just teamed up with MGM on British author Jojo Moyes’s romance novel Me Before You, with The Spectacular Now scribes Scott Neustadter and Michael J. Weber set to adapt.
Me Before You has sold over 500,000 copies, with 250,000 e-book downloads, and has been translated into 31 languages. The opposites-attract love story follows Will, a successful businessman who grows bitter and suicidal after a motorcycle accident puts him in a wheel chair for life, and Lou the young girl hired to care for him who brings joy and love back into his life. No director or stars are on board yet.
Karen Rosenfelt is currently in pre-production on another best selling novel, Megan Abbott’s dark and edgy Dare Me.
Dare Me is about a group of extremely competitive and backstabbing cheerleaders whose antics lead to murder. Michael Suscy, director of the Emmy winning HBO Grey Gardens and The Vow is on board to direct, with Academy Award winning actress Natalie Portman (The Black Swan) eyeing the lead. At 32, Portman could be considered too old for the part of a cheerleader, but, hey – no one seemed to mind when a 34 year old Stockard Channing was cast as Betty Rizzo in Grease in 1978. She went on to win a Peoples Choice Award for the part.
Portman is in post-production on her own turn wearing the producers cap for Jane Got A Gun, a Gavin O’Connor directed western with Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby), Noah Emmerick (The Americans) and Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting).
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