2 months ago
EXCLUSIVE: Laika‘s unrecorded action section has won nan bidding warfare for Emily St. John Mandel‘s upcoming novel, Exit Party, we understand, and Emma Stone and Dave McCary’s Fruit Tree has besides boarded arsenic EP.
We understand that nan deal’s waste was successful nan debased seven-figures.
The live-action limb of nan stop-motion workplace has been operating for nan past 3 years, processing characteristic projects. Exit Party will service arsenic their first live-action TV task nether nan division’s President, Matt Levin, who is simply a Netflix vet.
Deadline told you first that location was an auction for nan IP back successful October among 8 to 10 studios and streamers. Toward nan end, this boiled down to five. St. John Mandel, we hear, was drawn to Laika fixed their thrust for nan project, nan workplace speaking to nan writer and her reps connected a predominant basis. I perceive that Laika system a strategical connection that weighted St. John Mandel’s creation, sound and early contribution.
The author, whose erstwhile novels see Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility, is still adapting her ain caller arsenic antecedently reported by Deadline. The book hits shelves successful September from Penguin Random House, however, WandaVision showrunner Jac Schaeffer is nary longer showrunning aliases directing, and that’s owed to her commitments to Amazon MGM Studios, wherever she has an wide deal. Laika is retired to showrunner candidates arsenic of this post. Fruit Tree’s attachment came together rather recently.
Fruit Tree’s Head of Television Amy Hodge will shepherd nan task connected behalf of nan Bugonia studio, while Alex Maggioni, Head of Television astatine Laika Live Action will oversee for nan accumulation studio. Laika’s live-action limb is located successful L.A., while nan animation HQ is successful Portland, OR.
Exit Party is simply a communicative of doubles, protector worlds, and fractured timelines arsenic a man disappears from a sparkling Los Angeles party, and a woman—a gunrunner, an creation collector, an operative of nan State—searches for answers.
“Emily is simply a singular talent whose activity aligns profoundly pinch Laika’s imaginative ethos,” says Laika’s Maggioni. “Partnering pinch Fruit Tree, pinch their unthinkable way grounds for bold and inventive projects, makes this each nan much special, and we’re thrilled to bring this communicative to nan surface together. From our very first read, we were struck by nan beauty and extent of Exit Party. It is quintessentially Laika: character-driven, thematically rich, and visually imaginative pinch eager storytelling. Even though it’s group successful nan adjacent future, it speaks straight to nan world we’re surviving successful now pinch specified clarity and insight. At nan core, it’s astir nan forces — some soul and outer — that style who we become, nan domiciled institutions play successful that journey, and nan enduring hunt for joyousness and dream successful a fragmented world.”
“There were a batch of suitors for Exit Party,” said Mandel, “but Laika came successful pinch tremendous passion for this project, and I felt from nan first gathering that they were committed to partnering pinch maine to accommodate this caller for TV. I started moving successful tv because I emotion nan adjustment process—figuring retired really to break isolated a caller and put it backmost together for a caller mean is 1 of my favourite things. With Laika and Fruit Tree, our shared imaginative imagination and ambition are palpable, and I can’t hold to get to work.”
St. John Mandel is represented by Melissa Verve, Curate, Curtis Brown and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich, Goodell, & Gellman. Fruit Tree is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Mosaic. The woody was negotiated by Head of Live Action Business Affairs Zac Locke for Laika.
Since launching its unrecorded action division, Laika has myriad projects successful nan pipeline. At nan apical of nan database is nan characteristic return of New York Times Jenkins Reid bestseller Atmosphere from Captain Marvel filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. There’s besides a characteristic return of Katie Kitamura’s bestselling novel Audition with Lucy Liu and Charles Melton attached to prima which Laika is producing alongside nan Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. Other characteristic projects see an adjustment of nan action thriller novel Seventeen by screenwriter John Brownlow; a movie type of nan original script Crumble, written and directed by Brian Duffield (Spontaneous) pinch Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Project Hail Mary) producing, and an original task from Oscar-nominated Dune: Part One screenwriter Jon Spaihts.
