EXCLUSIVE: Argent Pictures and Brigsby Bear producer 3311 Productions are teaming to develop, finance and produce a feature film adapted from Esta Spalding’s children’s book Look Out For The Fitzgerald-Trouts. Former Mad Men writer/co-executive producer Semi Chellas is set to pen the screenplay.
The book, published last year by Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers, centers on a family of four kids who are living a contemporary Swiss Family Robinson dream on a tropical island. They set out to find themselves a home and end up saving the world.
Chellas’ credits include the upcoming Amazon Studios series The Romanoffs, and she also penned the Daisy Ridley-Naomi Watts Shakespeare take Opheila. Fitzgerald-Trouts is the first children’s book for Spalding, a TV writer whose credits include Showtime’s Masters of Sex.
“I’m so excited to see my beloved Fitzgerald-Trout characters take on new life in the capable hands of Semi Chellas and the 3311 and Argent teams,” Spalding said. “We’re all on the same page in wanting to make a super entertaining movie that speaks to the power of children to make the world a better place.”
Argent most recently acquired feature rights to The Good Time Girls, Courtney Hoffman’s acclaimed feminist Western short film. The film production/financing company run by Jill Ahrens, Ryan Ahrens and Ben Renzo will finance and produce the feature remake, and they’ve set a February start date in New Mexico with Hoffman aboard to direct.
3311 Productions’ slate includes Chad Hartigan’s The Fifth Official, Sympathy for the Devil and Kerem Sanga’s The Violent Heart.
Chellas is repped by UTA and Hansen, Jacobson. Spalding is with UTA and Intellectual Property Group.
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