Two women-driven television adaptations are in the works. “Lean On Me,” a gender-flipped TV reboot of the classic Morgan Freeman film, is in development at The CW, and Emily Mortimer is producing a limited series based on the Ann Patchett novel “State of Wonder.”
1989’s “Lean On Me” follows a strict but passionate principal and his tireless work to improve the inner city school he oversees. Per Deadline, the TV adaptation will feature a similar story, but this time the principal will be a young black woman. When Amarie Baldwin “scores the principal job at an Akron, Ohio, public high school, she must dig deep to transform a failing campus into an urban oasis,” the source hints. “In a time when education and school safety have life-or-death stakes, Amarie will take on a broken system that tests her mettle, love life, and family. But can she keep her moxie in check in order to embody the aspirational educator that motivates and uplifts an entire community?”
Wendy Calhoun (“Empire”) is writing and exec producing. LeBron James and John Legend are among the project’s other EPs.
Mostly recently Calhoun served as a writer and consulting producer on the “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff “Station 19.” It returns for a second season October 4 on ABC. Calhoun’s myriad other credits include “Nashville,” “Revenge,” and “Justified.”
Entertainment One scored the TV rights to “State of Wonder” “in a competitive situation,” with plans to make it into a limited series, Deadline writes. Mortimer and her producing partner and husband, Alessandro Nivola, are producing the project via their King Bee shingle. Lucy Donnelly will produce as well.
Published in 2011, “State of Wonder” sees Dr. Marina Singh traveling deep into the Amazon rain forest in search of her mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson. Swenson “vanished while conducting research into the prolonged fertility of the women of an isolated Amazonian tribe,” Deadline details. “As Marina embarks upon this uncertain odyssey, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits her in the darkest reaches of the rain forest.”
The book was nominated for the 2011 Wellcome Trust Book Prize and shortlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Mortimer spearheaded the pursuit of “State of Wonder” for eOne, but there are no plans for her or Nivola to star. You can see Mortimer in theaters now in Isabel Coixet’s “The Bookshop.” She’ll next appear in “Mary Poppins Returns,” out December 19.
The Julianne Moore-starring film adaptation of Patchett’s “Bel Canto” opens today, September 14. The story sees an opera singer and other attendees of a state dinner be taken hostage by guerrilla forces in an unnamed South American country. Novels “The Patron Saint of Liars,” “Run,” and “Commonwealth,” essay collection “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” and memoir “Truth & Beauty” are among the author’s other books. Patchett also co-owns Nashville bookstore Parnassus Books.
