Gillian Flynn’s wildly popular novel, Gone Girl, which has topped the New York Times Bestseller List for the last two weeks, has been acquired by 20th Century Fox in a seven figure deal. The novel, about a woman who disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary with all evidence pointing to her husband, will be produced by Reese Witherspoon’s production company Pacific Standard with Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea producing with Leslie Dixon. Flynn will write the screenplay.

A former television critic for Entertainment Weekly, Flynn currently has three novels on the bestseller list and two other movie projects in the works. Her first novel, Sharp Objects, has been optioned by Alliance with Jason Blum of Blumhouse producing. Her other, Dark Places, has Gilles Paquet-Brenner attached to direct and Amy Adams to star.

Pacific Standard also recently acquired the rights to Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir, Wild, about her hike of the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother’s death and dissolving marriage. Lisa Cholodenko, director of The Kids Are All Right, is attached to adapt and direct.

The good news about this deal is that there seems to be more women centric films in development. Gone Girl and Wild are both very different from say Fifty Shades of Grey. Which means that maybe, we’ll start to get a wide variety of films that are of interest to women as the studios start to take note that women buy movie tickets. We’ll be watching to see when these films actually go into production.

Fox, Reese Witherspoon At Center Of 7-Figure Deal For Gillian Flynn Novel ‘Gone Girl’ (Deadline New York)