Since making his debut with 2000’s Chuck & Buck, director Miguel Arteta has generally stayed with comedy, making the likes of Cedar Rapids and Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. He’s ready to change things up a little for a new assignment, directing novel adaptation** All The Bright Places.
Novelist Jennifer Niven is aboard to adapt the young-adult romance tale herself. The film has Elle Fanning aboard to star as Violet, a teenager who, crushed by her sister’s death, is considering suicide up on her school’s bell tower. But it’s there she meets Theodore Finch, long considered the facility’s resident “weird” pupil, prone to violent, manic outbursts. Violet, on the other hand, had been known as a popular cheerleader, but the two form an unlikely connection. Theodore puts her name down as his partner on a class project to wander the state looking at tourist attractions, and Violet begins to feel better seeing them through his eyes, even as Finch’s demons continue to plague him.
With the book still on the New York Times bestseller list, production company Demarest is naturally interested in getting the adaptation under way as soon as possible, with the production planned as starting roll early next year. Fanning has various projects on their way to the screen, including Gaby Dellal’s Three Generations, Jay Roach’s biopic Trumbo and Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon.