EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features has secured the rights to develop and produce a feature version of Chris Adrian & Eli Horowitz’s eponymous novel The New World. Sharon Horgan, who created HBO’s Divorce and co-created Pulling and Motherland for BBC, will make her feature directorial debut from a screenplay by Sarah Ruhl. Alicia Van Couvering and Olivia Wilde will produce.
In The New World Jane’s husband Jim has just died — or, not quite as he had assigned his head to be frozen with a shadowy organization that promises to do away with mortality forever. Awake in a bucolic retreat – an afterlife of sorts – Jim learns that the cost of eternal life is higher than he ever could have imagined. Meanwhile, stranded in the realm of the living and reeling from the loss of her husband, Jane sets out to get back his head.
Horgan previously directed the award-winning short The Week Before Christmas for Sky One in the UK and is known for her BAFTA-winning work as co-creator, writer and star of sitcom Catastrophe, for which she has received three further BAFTA TV nominations and a Primetime Emmy nomination. Merman, the production company Horgan co-founded, recently signed a two-year overall deal with Amazon Studios. Horgan also recently appeared in the Jason Bateman-Rachel McAdams critically acclaimed New Line comedy Game Night.
The New World is Ruhl’s first screenplay. She is a Tony-nominated playwright, a two-time Pulitzer finalist and a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient whose past stage work includes In the Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play), The Clean House and Eurydice.
Wilde has been increasing her role as a producer on myriad independent features lately. The Tron: Legacy and upcoming Life Itself actress produced Reed Murano’s drama Meadowland, which world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and starred Wilde, Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi and Elisabeth Moss.
Horgan is repped by WME and United Agents. Ruhl is repped by UTA. Wilde is repped by WME.
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