After a competitive bid negotiation, recently launched Imagine Kids & Family has won the film adaptation rights to Lindsay Leavitt’s romantic comedy novel “Going Vintage.”
Kara Holden, whose credits include “Carrie Pilby” and “Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life,” will pen the adaptation. The film will be produced by Imagine Kids+Family President Stephanie Sperber, alongside 2 Friends Entertainment’s Nancy Steingard and Wendy Moss-Klein.
The book, published in 2013, follows a 16-year old who discovers that her “perfect” boyfriend is cheating on her with an online girlfriend. When their ugly breakup goes viral, she not only swears off boys but modern technology altogether. Inspired by a list of goals her grandmother made in 1962, she decides to “go vintage” and return to a simpler time to fulfill her grandmother’s teenage bucket list, but modern day problems have her questioning whether there has ever been a “simpler time.”
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“I fell in love with this story immediately upon reading the book,” Sperber said. “The idea of a teen from today giving up all things modern and dressing & living as if it was 1962, is a terrific hook to a sweet romantic story about finding love and understanding your family.”
Leavitt has written 13 books including “The Chapel Wars,” “Sean Griswold’s Head” and the “Princess for Hire” series. She has won a dozen awards for her work in the fiction space, including the Best Fiction for Young Adults from the Young Adult Library Services Assn.
Imagine Kids+Family was started in January by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment. The division recently announced their first series to be greenlit, with Nickelodeon, a partnership with James Patterson’s kids division Jimmy Books, and with Life to develop “Life for Kids” as an animated series using images from the picture magazine to bring history to life.
Recent Imagine movies include “The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years,” “The Spy Who Dumped Me” and the documentary “Pavarotti.” Howard is in production on “Hillbilly Elegy” for Netflix with Amy Adams and Glenn Close starring.
Holden is repped by Verve, Anonymous Content and Hansen Jacobson.