'Words' Writer-Directors Tackling YA Adaptation 'Break My Heart 1,000 Times' (Exclusive)

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Lee Sternthal and Brian Klugman

Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, the duo behind the Sept. 7 Bradley Cooper release The Words, have been hired to direct Gold Circle's supernatural thriller Break My Heart 1,000 Times.  

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The YA novel written by Daniel Waters (Generation Dead) is to be published next month by Hyperion. It was adapted by Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift). Klugman and Sternthal will do a polish before going out to cast. 

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Break My Heart, described as having elements of Disturbia and The Sixth Sense, is set nine years after a cataclysmic event has left ghosts inhabiting the ordinary world. While most apparitions seem to be harmless, one 16-year-old girl finds herself stalked by one she believes is a serial killer.

The film will be fully financed by Gold Circle, and company president Paul Brooks will produce. (The company is behind the buzz-generating upcoming musical comedy Pitch Perfect.)

Scott Niemeyer will executive produce, and vp Brad Kessell, who developed the script, will co-produce.

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Grads of the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, Klugman and Sternthal received a story credit on Tron: Legacy and make their directing debut with Words, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Jeremy Irons, Olivia Wilde and Dennis Quad star in the romantic drama being released by CBS Films.

They are writers and exec producers on When Gravity Fails, an adaptation of a George Alec Effinger novel set up at IM Global with Scott Derrickson directing.

The duo is repped by ICM Partners, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Myman Greenspan.