Following the acquisition of 20th Century Fox to the movie rights of Stephanie Garber's fantasy novel "Hearts Made of Black", the studio has now set up the project with "Divergent" producer, Pouya Shahbazian.
According to Variety, a heated bidding war for Stephanie Garber's "Hearts Made of Black" was held Friday morning. Flatiron Books reportedly won the auction for the novel's publishing rights in a major two-book deal. Its translation rights on the other hand, have been preempted the U.K. by Hodder in a reportedly six-figure contract that still has potentially pending deals and active bids in other countries including France and Spain.
The heated bidding war ended with Fox winning the film's rights in 10 hours, reportedly with literary scouts Drew Reed and Zander Bauman of Fox's New York scouting office flagging the book.
The Hollywood Reporter says Kira Goldberg will shepherd the project for the studio with Pouya Shahbazian as its official producer. Shahbazian will helm the project under his New Leaf Literary and Media banner which has currently two slates in the works -Andrea Arnold's "American Honey" which stars Shia LaBeouf, and the third installment of Lionsgate's "Divergent" franchise, "The Divergent Series: Allegiant."
As per Yahoo's report, the newly reined producer is also working on Universal Pictures' "Red Queen" with Elizabeth Banks in negotiations to produce and direct; Warner Bros.' "The Selection" with Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan also producing; Sony Pictures' "Apollo Rising," based on a screenplay by Victoria Aveyard; and Warner Bros.' adaptation of Ben Sanders' upcoming "American Blood," slated to be directed by Andrew Sodroski and star Bradley Cooper.
Meanwhile, Garber is noted to be teaching creative writing at William Jessup University in California. She also recently started blogging on Pub(lishing) Crawl. The "Hearts Made of Black" author is currently repped by Shahbazian of New Leaf Literary & Media, attorney Karl Austen of Jackoway Tyerman and Jenny Bent of The Bent Agency.
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