Sue Kroll is set to produce Warner Bros.’ film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s New York Times best-seller “City of Girls,” the studio announced Monday.
Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to the novel, which was published last June. Emmy and WGA Award-nominated writer Michelle Ashford will write the screenplay.
“City of Girls” is set in 1940s New York and follows a young woman’s journey in the discovery of herself. This is the third big-screen adaptation of a work by Gilbert: Her 2006 memoir, “Eat Pray Love,” was adapted into a 2010 film that starred Julia Roberts, and her GQ article about her time as a bartender at NYC’s Coyote Ugly saloon was the basis of 2000’s “Coyote Ugly.”
“I completely fell in love with Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘City of Girls,’” Kroll said. “She created an original, joyful and incredible world of daring characters so vividly painted that you genuinely feel the aspirations, thrill and seduction of living in New York City in that era. And I couldn’t be happier to have the much sought after Michelle Ashford adapting this material, which is perfectly suited for her. “I’m excited to make a fun and splashy film with strong, audacious female voices and this has it all, and more.”
Gilbert added: “I’m thrilled to be working with the inimitable Sue Kroll and the brilliant Michelle Ashford on the adaptation of my novel. More than any book I’ve ever written, ‘City of Girls’ always felt like it wanted to be a movie. The entire time I was writing the novel, I was picturing it on the big screen. Something about the glittering and glamorous sex-appeal of the New York City theater world in the 1940s just demands to be brought to life in the most vivid and shining way. The fact that this will be a female-led production makes me happier still, because ‘City of Girls’ was always meant to be a story for women, and about women. My characters could not be in better hands with Kroll and Ashford. I’m over the moon.”
Elizabeth Gilbert is represented by Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency and Kassie Evashevski at Anonymous Content. Kroll is represented by ID Public Relations.