IP Picks🔎: A 'Conjuring'-esque Haunted House Chiller Preys on a Family's Fears
➕ What moms will do to protect their kids and a story with 'One Day' vibes that's series-ready
Welcome to The Optionist.
As always, thanks for reading along. Let's start the week with a quick roundup of some stories of interest:
First, to the world of politics. I realize that asking people to read something else on this subject during a busy (and very exhausting) election season is a bit like serving ice cream in the dead of winter. But hear me out. Jimmy Carter turned 100 this week — the first president to get there. Carter is a fascinating figure, especially now that we’re able to look at his life less encumbered by the negative baggage that came with his time in the White House. I’m convinced that there's a biopic — or two — in his life.
The one that I think is the strongest is the story of how, as a young Navy officer, Carter helped Canada avert a nuclear disaster when an explosion at a remote research reactor caused the early stages of a meltdown. As one of the few people in the world qualified for such work, Carter led a team of two dozen sailors on a dicey mission to stop a catastrophe. Conditions were so dangerous that they could only spend 90 seconds at a time inside, so they built an exact duplicate on-site to practice on. Personally, I don't think a soup-to-nuts biopic is the way to go with the man from Plains. Just focus on this one event. There's a ton of underlying IP that you could option, from Carter bios to news accounts (for example, here and here). Dig in!
Next up, I think there could be a movie in this story about a group of friends who staged a guerrilla dinner party in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial for a friend dying of cancer. Or maybe some screenwriter will be inspired to use it in an existing show or movie. There might not be enough there. But what this story does have is a serious dose of ‘the feels’ — think Love Story in terms of the period and emotional heft — and that's why I'm sharing it. I found it to be moving and beautiful. If you haven't read it and need something that is both sad and uplifting, this is your ticket.
Here we go again. Someone is trying to make ‘fetch’ happen again with The Corrections. Jonathan Franzen's acclaimed 2001 novel is getting yet another shot at the screen after HBO killed Noah Baumbach’s high-profile 2012 pilot, which was slated to star Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Greta Gerwig. This new incarnation doesn't have a network or streamer attached yet, but it does have Meryl Streep, and that ain’t nothing.
I'm pretty meh on this idea and always have been. I never really thought the book was adaptable for the screen, big or small. In fact, Baumbach told Kurt Andersen that HBO passed on the partially shot pilot because the story was too complex and expensive. Also, Franzen's a snob who looks down on film and TV as lesser mediums. I don’t have any patience for people like that. I mean, who wants to make a show with a guy who shits on what you do? And in more practical sense, who wants to have to navigate a press tour with that guy when the show finally comes out?
Finally, there's a Hair Club for Men joke in here somewhere. You know, "I'm not only the Hair Club president, but I’m also a client”? Well, book club maven Reese Witherspoon is about to become ‘Author Reese Witherspoon.' The Oscar winner is teaming up with bestseller machine Harlan Coben to write a suspense story. No details on the plot yet, but the idea is said to have originated with Witherspoon. I hope she takes a cue from Hair Club spokes-boss Sy Sperling: “I don’t just run a book club, I write books as well.”
Now, on to this week’s picks. There’s a little something for almost everyone this week from mystery to horror to period drama. If anything unites these picks, it’s the theme of family, which I think is very topical right now.
The full lineup:
A mystery centered on a new mother trying to solve the disappearance of a childhood friend two decades earlier
A drama pitched as One Day for the generation just coming of age
A psychological horror story about a family whose new house is haunting them by preying on their innermost fears and desires
A period drama in the vein of Erin Brockovich about two early environmental crusaders who tried to block a poisonous chemical from being sold