Most of the people who were responsible for the critical and commercial success of Silver Linings Playbook — Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, David O. Russell, Harvey Weinstein, etc. — are household names in the movie industry. While the novelist Matthew Quick, whose 2010 book provided Russell with his source material, can’t be said to be as famous as that lineup of people, he’s nevertheless seen his success and exposure grow immensely alongside that of Russell’s Oscar-winning adaptation. For starters, Quick’s yet-to-be-published novel The Good Luck of Right Now was picked up by DreamWorks in January — just a short month or two after Silver Linings Playbook finally landed in U.S. theaters.
A new report from Deadline states that the rights to a third Quick novel — 2010’s Sorta Like a Rock Star — have just been acquired by another reputable label: Fox Searchlight. Set to be a co-production between Gotham Group and Temple Hill Entertainment (who recently teamed-up on the forthcoming The Maze Runner), Sorta Like a Rock Star tells the story of “Amber Appleton, a high school senior who secretly lives in the back of a school bus.” The bus — which the characters call “Hello Yellow,” for good quirky measure — “is the same one that [Amber’s] mother uses to drive kids to school, and despite the adversity, Amber is a self-proclaimed princess of hope and girl of unyielding optimism.”
Searchlight’s purchase includes the spec adaptation co-written by Laura Sandler and Amanda Harlib, though the report suggests that, depending on who ultimately directs the project, script changes could be made. While the brief plot synopsis hints at a “fatal tragedy” that “puts [Angela’s] optimism to the test,” the story would appear to be a natural fit for the crowd-pleasing variety Searchlight often uses (Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, and, more recently, The Way, Way Back) to buffer their tougher, more experimental fare (Shame, Stoker, The Tree of Life).
In a second bit of Fox Searchlight-related news, Deadline report that the distributor has picked up the rights to a “high-concept feature comedy pitch” from writer-director Joe Swanberg. If the previous news item consisted of a purchased narrative premise without a signed director, this one’s just the opposite: it’s clear that Swanberg will write and direct the project, but all we know about the story is that it will be “a thematic continuation of Swanberg’s films that tackle the complex romantic relationships between people struggling with commitment.”
Swanberg, of course, is currently enjoying a leap in his public profile with Drinking Buddies, which has been doing solid VOD business for nearly a month now (and will open in select theaters this weekend); a future partnership with Fox Searchlight would, on paper, seem like an even bigger step into the mainstream — a not-entirely-unwelcome development for a director whose films are often stranded on the festival circuit or in a micro-scale theatrical release. He’s so prolific, in fact, that a new film of his has already premiered — 24 Exposures, which we reviewed at the Fantasia Festival earlier this month — as Drinking Buddies is preparing to hit theaters.
Which of these two projects are you most looking forward to?