MGM Picks Up Neil Strauss' 'The Game,' Taps 'Solitary Man' Team to Write and Direct (Exclusive)

After tackling the story of an aging man’s sexual appetite with the acclaimed Michael Douglas drama Solitary Man, Brian Koppelman and David Levien are taking on the subject again, this time from a different point of view.

Koppelman and Levien will rewrite and direct The Game, MGM’s adaptation of the best-selling Neil Strauss book about picking up women. Part memoir, part how-to guide, The Game details Strauss's effort to learn the tricks to becoming a successful pick-up artist, even moving into a Sunset Strip mansion filled with other competing players to find love.

The project was originally set up at Columbia with Chris Weitz attached to direct, then it shacked up with Spyglass with D.B. Weiss writing. Later, Lionsgate made a pass at an incarnation with Rawson Marshall Thurber attached to helm. Fox Searchlight also flirted with the project, but Game has now made its way to MGM, recently taken over by former Spyglass toppers Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum. Chris and Paul Weitz are attached to produce.

Mystery, a man who serves as Strauss' teacher in the book, later starred in a VH1 reality series called The Pick-Up Artist. 

MGM, Koppelman and Levien plan to move fast with The Game and want to begin casting soon.

Koppelman and Levine wrote Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 drama The Girlfriend Experience, as well as Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Thirteen. They made their entrée into the biz writing the 1998 poker drama Rounders, later making the 2001 mob drama Knockaround Guys.

The duo is repped by CAA.

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