Hollywood’s ravenous appetite for all things Matthew Quick
If only Hollywood could get novelist Matthew Quick to write faster. Everything the Massachusetts-based writer pens seems to be scooped up by the studios as soon as the books are bound.
The author -- best known for “Silver Linings Playbook,” his 2008 novel that was turned into last year’s Oscar-nominated darling -- has sold four of his five novels to Hollywood, and none of them are simple stories.
His latest book to be optioned is his second-oldest, 2010’s young-adult novel “Sorta Like a Rock Star,” which centers on Amber Appleton, a high school senior who secretly lives in the back of a school bus.
According to Deadline Hollywood, which broke the news of the acquisition Tuesday, Fox Searchlight will produce the adaptation of the novel from a screenplay written on spec by Laura Sandler and Amanda Harlib (writers on the show “Haute & Bothered”). Temple Hill’s Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen, the duo behind the “Twilight” franchise and the upcoming “Fault in Our Stars,” will produce the film alongside Gotham Group’s Lee Stollman and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein.
“The Spectacular Now” director James Ponsoldt signed on with the Weinstein Co. in April to write an adaptation of Quick’s novel “Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock,” which just debuted on bookshelves last week. That novel, also geared toward young adults, centers on teenager Leonard Peacock, who chooses his birthday to kill his former best friend and himself with his grandfather’s gun.
Also, in development is Quick’s yet-to-be-published novel “The Good Luck of Right Now,” which writer-director-actor Mike White is adapting for DreamWorks Studio. That novel, set to debut in the spring, tells the stories of four outsiders who, amid grieving over pain and loss in their lives, come together to form an unlikely family. The rights were purchased in March.
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The only novel of Quick’s that has yet to be scooped up by Hollywood is his 2012 award-winning young-adult novel “Boy21.” Named by Kirkus as one of the best teen books of 2012, “Boy21” focuses on the friendship between two teenage boys united by personal adversity and basketball.
But considering the pace at which his novels have been optioned, it seems likely to go soon.
ALSO:
Matthew Quick talks about the film ‘Silver Linings’
Movie review: ‘Silver Linings’ is irresistibly eccentric
In ‘Silver Linings Playbook,’ a blueprint for a fall sleeper
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