By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
KROLL & CO. ENTERTAINMENT ACQUIRES JONATHAN LETHEM’S THE FERAL DETECTIVE
Los Angeles, CA (May 30, 2018) – Kroll & Co. Entertainment, the recently launched production company of producer Sue Kroll, has acquired the rights to Jonathan Lethem’s new novel, The Feral Detective, through her exclusive deal at Warner Bros. Pictures. The highly anticipated novel—Lethem’s first detective story since hisNew York Times bestseller Motherless Brooklyn—sold to Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, and will be published in November 2018.
The Feral Detective follows Phoebe Siegler, a sarcastic and garrulous woman who heads to California to try to find her best friend’s missing teenaged daughter. When a lead brings her to the stark and seedy desert towns just east of Los Angeles, Phoebe is put in contact with Charles Heist, a laconic, strange private eye with an uncanny ability to find those that don’t want to be found, who reluctantly agrees to help. She dubs him The Feral Detective. As the unlikely pair traverse the stunning desert and its enclaves and get closer to the missing girl, their lives are placed in increasing jeopardy.
The project furthers the collaborative relationship between the award-winning author and Kroll. Previously announced, she serves as an executive producer on Edward Norton’s film adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn, teaming with producers Norton, William Migliore, Gigi Pritzker and Rachel Shane, and executive producers Michael Bederman, Adrian Alperovich, Robert F. Smith, Brian Sheth and Daniel Nader. Currently in post-production, the film stars Norton, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe and Alec Baldwin.
“Jonathan is one of America’s greatest storytellers and, without hyperbole, a true literary genius,” said Kroll. “The Feral Detective is similarly brilliant, and also a wild, funny, contemporary, and genre-defying piece of literature that represents the type of stories I want to continue to tell through Kroll & Co. I am thrilled to be able to help bring his novel to the screen.”
Lethem added, “It’s a thrill having Sue Kroll capture The Feral Detective for the screen. From the moment we first spoke, Sue persuaded me she saw Phoebe and Charles, and their wild ricochet through the book’s barbaric landscape, in uniquely cinematic terms. What luck for me to have Sue find the book and begin to make it her own.”
Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Dissident Gardens and The Fortress of Solitude. He is an NBCC Award winner, a recipient of a MacArthur genius grant, and is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.
WME brokered the deal on behalf of Lethem and the novel. Stewart Brookman of Hansen, Jacobson negotiated on behalf of Kroll & Co.
Through her exclusive deal at Warner Bros. Pictures, Kroll & Co. recently announced its first acquisition of Peter Kornbluh’s gripping Politico article “My Dearest Fidel: A Journalist’s Secret Liaison with Fidel Castro,” which Kroll will develop and produce alongside Gal Gadot and Jaron Varsano.
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ABOUT KROLL & CO. ENTERTAINMENT
Kroll & Co. Entertainment is a Warner Bros.-based production company dedicated to bringing fresh and original stories to life beyond the page. Launched in 2018 by industry leader Sue Kroll, the company seeks to be a collaborative partner for both new and established filmmakers, engaging with all aspects of the holistic filmmaking process—from development and story inception through exhibition and release—to champion and preserve the essential artistic vision of each project. In addition to feature films, the company will produce and develop television, digital and other content. As Producer, Kroll has a number of upcoming projects in various stages of development, including The Six Billion Dollar Man, starring Mark Wahlberg, who produces alongside Stephen Levinson, Bill Gerber, Scott Faye, and Karen Lauder; Nemesis, with producers Ridley Scott and Jules Daly; an untitled comedy starring Sandra Bullock, who will also produce with Michael Bostick; the YA dramaThe Selection, alongside producers Denise Di Novi and Pouya Shahbazian; a film based on Peter Kornbluh’s Politico article “My Dearest Fidel: A Journalist’s Secret Liaison with Fidel Castro,” with producers Gal Gadot and Jaron Varsano; and DC’s untitled Harley Quinn girl gang movie, starring Margot Robbie, who also produces alongside Bryan Unkeless, and to be directed by Cathy Yan. Kroll also serves as Executive Producer on Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born, which Warner Bros. will release on October 5, 2018; Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn; John Crowley’s The Goldfinch, based on Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel; and the DC action adventure Blackhawk, which Steven Spielberg will produce with Kristie Macosko Krieger, under Amblin Entertainment.