I Was Here Cover - P 2015
Courtesy of PenguinNew Line is reuniting with Gayle Forman, the author behind the company’s adaptation of If I Stay, optioning the movie rights to Forman’s latest best-seller, the mystery romance I Was Here.
Forman is attached to exec produce. New Line’s Andrea Johnston is overseeing.
Here, published by Viking, centers on Cody, an 18-year-old whose best friend Meg takes her own life. Looking for answers, Cody begins a brave and dangerous journey that takes her from her dead-end Washington town to Meg’s college dorm, to the clubs of Seattle, to the deserts of Nevada, and to the darkest parts of her own psyche.
And as she looks for the whys and hows of her friend’s death, Cody is forced to consider the meanings of love, friendship, guilt and forgiveness.
The book hit shelves Jan. 27 and was called an “irresistible tear-jerker” by The New York Times.
The book’s optioning continues Forman’s Hollywood hot streak. New Line partnered with MGM on If I Stay, released last August. In that movie’s wake, the book hit No. 1 on the Times’ best-seller lists, and a sequel, Where She Went, also became a hit.
In the fall, Universal picked up Forman’s Just One Day and its follow-up, Just One Year with a plan to combine both into a single-feature love story. Fake Empire heads Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are onboard to produce.
Forman was repped by Paradigm on behalf of Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich.
