Sony Pictures has made a preemptive deal to acquire feature film rights to Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling book “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead,” an individual familiar with the project has told TheWrap.
Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and will donate her proceeds from the project to her foundation.
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Veteran TV writer/director Nell Scovell will adapt the book, which she co-wrote with Sandberg. The movie is not designed as a Sandberg biopic, though it will explore themes featured in the book, including gender inequality in the workplace.
Sony’s president of production Hannah Minghella spearheaded the deal for the studio, which has not assigned a producer to the high-profile project. The studio is no stranger to making films about Facebook executives, as the studio also released the Mark Zuckerberg movie “The Social Network.”
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Scovell created ABC’s “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and is currently directing an episode of MTV’s “Awkward,” is represented by RWSG Agency.
Deadline broke the news.
For the record: An earlier version of this story misidentified the title of Sandberg’s book as “Fade In.” TheWrap regrets the error.