Michelle Zauner, best known for her indie rock act Japanese Breakfast, will turn her best-selling memoir “Crying in H Mart” into a feature film for MGM’s Orion Pictures.
Orion has acquired the rights to “Crying in H Mart,” which hit No. 2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list earlier this year and follows Zauner’s experience growing up as a Korean child in Oregon. The studio has set Zauner herself to adapt the book for the screen, as well as provide the film’s score performing as Japanese Breakfast.
In 2018, Zauner contributed an essay, also titled “Crying in H Mart,” for The New Yorker, in which she wrote about crying inside her local Korean grocery store after her mother passed away from terminal cancer. The book found Zauner reckoning with her relationship with her mother as well as time spent in Seoul with her grandmother.
Stacey Sher and Jason Kim will produce.
Last week, Zauner released her third album as Japanese Breakfast, “Jubilee,” an indie pop record that has received wide critical acclaim and was released on the label Dead Oceans.
Michelle Zauner is represented by CAA, Ten Atoms and The Book Group.
THR first reported the news.