Between adaptations of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Gayle Forman’s If I Stay, the summer of 2014 was an atypically soppy one for the YA crowd, but New Line is banking on there still being a hearty appetite for tearjerkers, having picked up film rights to Forman’s latest, mystery romance I Was Here.
The studio, which previously partnered with Forman on If I Stay, hopes that the author’s latest will resonate with teen audiences. The title, called an “irresistible tearjerker” by the New York Times, centers on Cody, an 18-year-old whose best friend Meg commits suicide. Distraught and confused, Cody undertakes a brave and dangerous journey that takes her from her dead-end Washington town to Meg’s college dorm, to the clubs of Seattle, to the deserts of Nevada, and to the darkest parts of her own psyche. As she searches for answers about her best friend’s death, Cody is forced to consider the meanings of love, friendship, guilt and forgiveness.
Forman will exec-produce. No star or director have yet been signed, and New Line has yet to announce a planned release date.
Though If I Stay was a troubled and often terrible film, Forman’s book was a thought-provoking and emotional read, so if New Line can learn from the mistakes of their last partnership with the author, I Was Here might be worth keeping an eye on.
The studio’s optioning of I Was Here continues Forman’s red-hot streak in Hollywood. As the studio geared up to release If I Stay last August, the book hit No. 1 on the Times‘ bestseller list, and its sequel Where She Went also became a hit. Then, last fall, Universal announced plans to turn Forman’s Just One Day and Just One Year duology into a single film.
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