CBS Films Taps Writers to Adapt 'Legend' Novel (Exclusive)

CBS Films has tapped up-and-coming writers Andrew Barrer and Gabe Ferrari to adapt Legend, Marie Lu’s forthcoming novel that the company hopes will be a major young adult franchise.

The hiring comes two weeks after CBS tapped Jonathan Levine to direct the adaptation, which is being produced by Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey of The Twilight Saga fame.

CBS has been making the creative hires against the backdrop of Book Expo in New York, where the book has been generated great reviews. Putnam is making the tome, due out on November 29, one of its big holiday sellers, ordering an initial print run of over 350,000.

According to the company the book “takes place in Los Angeles over a hundred years in the future, when North America is split into two warring nations. Legend focuses on Day, a fifteen-year old Robin Hood figure who happens to be the nation's most wanted criminal, and June, a teenage prodigy who is hired to hunt him down. The pair are caught in a game of cat and mouse until an impossible truth about their totalitarian leaders forces them to work together.”

Barrer and Ferrari wrote Die in a Gunfight, a Romeo and Juliet-like action project that made the 2010 Blacklist. The project is now set at MRC with Zac Efron attached to star and Anthony Mandler attached to direct.

The duo are repped by WME and Prolific.