via Shelf-Awareness
Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, with several stores in southern Florida and one in the Cayman Islands and a past president of the American Booksellers Association, has come up with an unusual bookseller sideline: with Hollywood producer Paula Mazur, he's created a company will make films based on books. Already the Mazur/Kaplan Company has its first project: it has bought film rights to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by the late Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows (Dial Press), which was released last month and has become one of the more appealing bestsellers of the summer.
Kaplan called the enterprise "an interesting permutation of what I've been doing all these years" and said that he's "always been interested in making books into film." He said that in the world of adaptations "basically it's all about the story and translating the story in an essential way."
Kaplan said that Mazur, whom he's known for a long time and with whom he has often discussed books and films, had just produced and wrote the initial screenplay for Nim's Island (based on the novel by Wendy Orr) and "has a good history of working with authors producing their books." Kaplan plans to be involved in all aspects of the company and can "bring books to the table early in the process."
For her part, Mazur told Shelf Awareness, "I have my own inroads into the publishing world but not nearly as substantial as Mitchell's." She said she is "thrilled" to be working with Kaplan. "I'm kind of an outside-the-box person in Hollywood. I've done what I've wanted to do, and this feels like the perfect next step: working with a bookseller."
Mazur said, too, that she likes to "involve the author in the process. Frankly it's so much fun to work with good authors." Sometimes, they like to be very involved, sometimes not. Often they can provide "the back story that doesn't show up on the page."
The Mazur/Kaplan Company has obtained financing and is considering buying film to two more books.
In the case of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Kaplan read the book in galley form in the spring and recommended it to Mazur. "I read it and loved it, too," she said. Then Kaplan and Mazur had lunch with Barrows during BEA in Los Angeles, and "shared our vision of the adaptation and how much we loved the book," Mazur said. "It was a meeting of the minds."
Mazur now is taking the project around "to the first tier of obvious companies [in Hollywood] to see if any want to come aboard at this point." She thinks the book will make a strong commercial film, saying that the authors "took subject matter that is substantive and dealt with it in a very light-handed way and made it a beautiful, lovely, easy read."
The Hollywood pitch for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: it is, Mazur said, "like Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary against a fantastic historical backdrop most people haven't seen."--
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