LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DreamWorks Studios is pleased to announce that they are in exclusive talks to acquire the feature film rights to M.L. Stedman’s debut novel “The Light Between Oceans,” it was announced today by Stacey Snider, Co-Chairman and CEO at the studio. Heyday Films’ David Heyman (“Harry Potter” series, Gravity) will produce the film adaptation along with Jeffrey Clifford. Rosie Alison, who brought the book into Heyday, will executive produce.
On a remote Australian island in the years following World War I, a lighthouse keeper and his wife are faced with a moral dilemma when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a two-month-old infant. When they decide to raise the child as their own, the consequences of their choice are devastating.
“M.L. Stedman has crafted a visually stunning and emotionally harrowing love story with a confounding moral dilemma at its center,” said Stacey Snider. “We were completely transfixed by the story and instantly imagined it as a sweeping, classic film. David Heyman is an ideal partner to bring Stedman’s story to the screen.”
"I was deeply affected by M. L. Stedman's powerful and primal story of human choices and their consequences,” said David Heyman. “It's a novel which tackles grand emotions, but everything is rooted within an intimate yet universal story of marital and parental love. I am excited to be working with such sympathetic partners in Stacey and the team at DreamWorks."
‘I’m both thrilled and incredibly honored that filmmakers of the caliber of DreamWorks and David Heyman are combining their brilliance in plans to bring the book to the big screen,” said M.L. Stedman. “I’ve lost count of the number of readers who have said ‘I can’t wait to see the novel as a movie!’ As a keen film fan, I feel the same.”
“The Light Between Oceans” was published in the United States in July 2012 by Scribner and has appeared on both the New York Times and USA Today’s bestseller lists, and others internationally, as well as being selected as Amazon’s Best Book of the Month for August. It is due to be translated into nearly 30 languages.
Negotiations are being handled by Nick Marston of Curtis Brown in association with Sue Armstrong of Conville and Walsh.
About DreamWorks Studios
DreamWorks Studios is a motion picture company formed in 2009 and led by Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider in partnership with The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The company’s recent releases include “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman and directed by Shawn Levy, Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse,” based on Michael Morpurgo’s award-winning book and was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, and “The Help,” which resonated with audiences around the country and earned over $200 million at the box office and received four Academy Award nominations with Octavia Spencer winning one for Best Supporting Actress. Currently in theaters is Spielberg’s “Lincoln” starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
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