Universal scoops up “Sweet Valley High” pitch from Diablo Cody:
U agreed to a deal with Cody and her manager Novick, outbidding Fox for the project. It’s in talks to acquire the film rights to the book series created by Francine Pascal and published by Random House.
The “Sweet Valley” novels followed the lives of identical twins with dissimilar personalities — the sensitive and practical Elizabeth and the flighty and boy-crazy Jessica — in the fictional town of Sweet Valley. There were more than 150 books in the series between 1983 and 2003 and a TV series with 88 episodes between 1994 and 1997.
Interesting on two accounts: (1) Evidently the tepid B.O. from Jennifer’s Body didn’t hurt. (2) And what was that deal about Universal shutting down acquisition dollars for the year?
U put out the word last week that it’s not spending money for the rest of this year to advance development projects — unless they’re being fast-tracked or greenlit (Daily Variety, Sept. 18). Deal comes on the heels of a tepid opening for “Jennifer’s Body,” which Cody scripted.
Gamesmanship alive and well in Hwood. And Cody’s manager Novick, attached to the SVH deal, is the guy who found Cody writing her blog, suggesting to her that she should write a screenplay. That became Juno.
I probably would have no interest in seeing this movie if it was written by anyone else.
I may be wrong but I could swear I heard Diablo in a podcast interview say one time that Jennifer's Body was the first script she worked on and she then went on to write Juno, which got picked up first. That might explain a lot – she learnt a lot by the time she go to work on Juno.