DreamWorks has entered exclusive talks to acquire the rights to M.L. Stedman's bestselling novel “The Light Between the Oceans” with 'Harry Potter" producer David Heyman on board to produce, the studio announced on Tuesday.
M.L. Stedman’s novel, set on a remote Australian island after World War I, follows a lighthouse keeper and his wife who discover a two-month old infant abandoned on a boat. The boat, which washed ashore, also holds a dead man.
The couple opts to raise the baby girl on their own, prompting a series of life-altering developments.
Heyman, a producer of all seven “Harry Potter” films and Alfonso Cuaron’s upcoming “Gravity,” will produce with Jeffrey Clifford. Rosie Allison of Heyman’s Heyday Films, who brought the book to the Warner-based production company, will executive produce.
"I was deeply affected by M. L. Stedman's powerful and primal story of human choices and their consequences,” Heyman said in a statement. “It's a novel which tackles grand emotions, but everything is rooted within an intimate yet universal story of marital and parental love.”
The book was published in July of 2012 by Scribner and has appeared on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Amazon selected it as its “Best Book of the Month” for August.
