DreamWorks Buys 8th Grader's Journal

Maya Van Wagenen, a 15-year old, wanted to fit into her new 8th grade class in Brownsville, Texas. So, she followed some tips from the 1950s book, Betty Cornell's Glamour Guide For Teens, and wrote a diary about her experience. That diary has earned the teenager a two-book and feature deal — an unusual, lucrative agreement for someone so young.

DreamWorks has acquired the feature rights to her diary. According to an article published earlier this week by Deadline, this deal makes Van Wagenen the youngest non-actor to ever make a feature deal with the studio.

First, Wagenen landed a two-book deal worth around $300,000 with Penguin Publishers, who battled for the rights in an auction put on by Writers House lit agent Dan Lazar, who then got Paradigm’s Lucy Stille to take the manuscript to Hollywood. From there, according to Deadline, "sparking to the book was Andrew Lazar, who’s currently producing the David Koepp-directed Johnny Depp-starrer Mortdecai ... Also championing it at DreamWorks was Macosko Krieger, who has the ear of someone important over there. She is the longtime assistant of Steven Spielberg."

Van Wagenen documented her social experiment as she followed tips from the 50s social advice guide, like wearing pearls or eating toast with grapefruit for breakfast to maintain a good figure. Along the way, she gained popularity with her classmates.

According to the Deadline article, "This is heady stuff for Van Wagenen, who is now 15, but book publishers went wild for her story of struggle, and how she found social footing by following such advice as: always wearing white gloves, using pearls as a fashion accessory; and never forgetting that a girdle can be a girl’s best friend. The most important lessons conveyed were timeless ones like being open and honest, and kind. She found that each social clique was distrustful of the others, and that all of the kids bore similar insecurities. She was able to find common ground and feel for the first time like she belonged."

Screenwriter Amy B. Harris will write the script, which Deadline described as a "coming of age feature." Previously, Harris was a writer for Sex And The City and The Carrie Diaries.

According to an article by the New York Post, "Cornell, a mother of three and former model from Teaneck, NJ, said she was thrilled at the renewed interest in her own book, one of four she penned on teenage issues at the time."

“I thought I would never hear about the book again,’’ she said to the Post.

In other Hollywood news, MGM has chosen Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber to adapt the best-selling novel by Jojo Moyes, titled Me Before You. Check out the ScreenCraft post, Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber To Adapt ‘Me Before You’