Lionsgate, Reese Witherspoon Developing ‘Outliers’ Trilogy as Next Major YA Franchise

Mandeville’s Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman will produce with Bruna Papandrea and Witherspoon

Lionsgate has acquired the feature film rights to Kimberly McCreight’s upcoming novel trilogy “The Outliers,” which is could serve as the studio’s next YA franchise after “The Hunger Games.”

 

In “The Outliers,” Wylie has always had great instincts, but she dismissed them as nothing more, until her best friend went missing. She finds Cassie in a remote spot in the woods with a group called the Outliers, who claim to be able to harness “intuition” and turn it into a powerful psychological weapon called EQ Transference. Bewitched by the utopia they seem to have created, and thrilled to be surrounded by people like her, Wylie joins the Outliers. But within days, she finds herself running for her life. Wylie doesn’t know it, but she has the potential to become the most powerful Reader of all. There are many who would go to great lengths to destroy her, and she can’t trust anyone – least of all, the Outliers.

Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman will produce via their Mandeville Films banner along with Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea via their Pacific Standard banner. Mandeville and Papandrea also produced “Warm Bodies” for Summit.

Mandeville’s hard-working development executive Laura Cray was instrumental in the “Outliers” deal, having brought the project in. She’ll oversee “Outliers” for Mandeville, while Lionsgate/Summit execs Erik Feig and Meredith Milton will oversee the project for the studio, whose Robert Melnik negotiated the deal on Lionsgate’s behalf.

“The Outliers” continues Lionsgate’s successful relationship with Mandeville Films, which produced Summit Entertainment’s “Warm Bodies” and has recently come aboard to executive produce the “Divergent” sequel “Insurgent.”

Pacific Standard is the production company behind the upcoming feature film adaptations of two bestselling novels, “Gone Girl” and “Wild.”

In a preemptive major sale, HarperCollins acquired North American publishing rights to McCreight’s upcoming trilogy earlier this year. The first book in the series will be published in late 2015.

McCreight’s bestselling debut novel, “Reconstructing Amelia,” is being developed by Nicole Kidman, who is also attached to star. The author is represented by Resolution and Marly Rusoff & Associates, Inc.

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