EXCLUSIVE: MGM and Plan B Entertainment have acquired the film rights to #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Taddeo’s novel Animal, which she will adapt for the screen, marking her feature writing debut. Plan B will produce the film as part of their overall deal with MGM.
The novel follows a woman, who after the gruesome suicide of her married lover, flees New York City for the sweltering canyons above Los Angeles, where she plots the takedown of a woman from her haunted past. Published in June of 2021 by Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.
“We call women crazy when they are angry,” Taddeo said. “And we don’t have enough art that reflects how basal and vibrant and important female rage can be. I’m thrilled and grateful to bring ANIMAL to life with two iconic film partners.”
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Taddeo is an author, journalist, and two-time recipient of the Pushcart Prize. Her first nonfiction book, Three Women, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller, and is currently in pre-production as a series at Showtime with Shailene Woodley starring and Taddeo adapting and serving as executive producer.
She is represented by ICM for books, CAA for screenwriting, Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks and ID PR.
Plan B and MGM are currently in production on Academy Award-nominee Sarah Polley’s feature adaptation of Miriam Toews’ bestselling novel Women Talking starring Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Ben Whishaw. They will begin production in early 2022 on Cory Finley’s film adaptation of National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson’s novel Landscape With Invisible Hand, starring Tiffany Haddish and Asante Black. The film is a co-production with Annapurna Pictures. As part of their overall deal, Plan B and MGM also has in the works an original film from Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award-nominated writer and director Lee Isaac Chung; a feature film adaption of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer, to be produced by Plan B, Harpo Films and Kamilah Forbes; and a feature adaptation of The Husbands from New York Times best-selling author Chandler Baker, with Kristen Wiig attached to star and produce along with Plan B.
