"I've written a lot of shorts, but this was my first feature. I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around traditional structure and the way they teach screenwriting in school. It felt like science to me -- and I was never good at math or science!"
Toby Canham/Getty ImagesSean Durkin, the filmmaker behind Martha Marcy May Marlene, is now tackling a different sort of family drama and is in negotiations to direct Sony’s adaptation of Little House on the Prairie.
Prairie is best known as the iconic TV series that aired on NBC from 1974 to 1983 and starred Michael Landon as the patriarch of a pioneer family living in the 1880s in the American Midwest.
The show was known for is wholesome values and was loosely based on a series of children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, who based it on her childhood. (Melissa Gilbert played Laura Wilder on the show.)
Scott Rudin is producing the feature project, which has a script by Abi Morgan.
David Gordon Green was previously on board to direct.
Sony had no comment.
Durkin’s Martha Marcy was a well-reviewed psychological drama that starred Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson and John Hawkes, and told of a young woman who tries in vain to reintegrate into the family life of her sister after escaping from a cult.
Durkin is repped by UTA.
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