Lionsgate Lands Emma Straub’s ‘This Time Tomorrow’ For Jason Moore To Direct

Justin Kroll
·3 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Following a competitive auction, Lionsgate has optioned the New York Times bestselling novel This Time Tomorrow, with Jason Moore to direct and produce the project. Joining Moore as producers are Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman, who will produce for Mandeville, with Alex Young executive producing. Emma Straub will adapt her own novel for the screen.

“Emma’s novel is tender and funny, life-affirming and poignant, sweet and nostalgic, deep and rich,” said Erin Westerman, Lionsgate’s President of Production. “There’s no relationship more fraught than that between parent and child, and it only gets more so as the years go by. Jason is the perfect director for this project – he can present the big, fascinating ideas and then drill down into the emotional center to change your whole perspective.”

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The book centers on Alice, who’s about to turn 40 and caring for her ailing father. When she wakes up in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday, it isn’t her adolescent body that shocks her or seeing her high school crush – it’s her dad:  the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?

The novel is in its third week on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list after debuting at No. 3.

“I’m so excited to reteam with Lionsgate and Todd and Alex at Mandeville to bring Emma’s extraordinary book to audiences,” Moore said. “It’s a hilariously funny, ingenious and deeply moving look at the way time is our most precious commodity, and how we spend it makes all the difference in who we become and how we are remembered.”

Best known for directing such hit comedies as Pitch Perfect and Sisters, Moore and Lionsgate already had strong ties after he most recently directed the studio’s Shotgun Wedding, starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel. The film will debut on Amazon Prime Video. He next will direct and produce Temple Hill’s Goodbye for Now. Moore also he is the creative force behind some of Broadway’s biggest hits, which include Fully Committed, Shrek the Musical, for which he earned Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Award nominations. He is repped by WME.

Straub also authored four other novels — All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures — and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in 20 countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn. She is represented by WME.

Mandeville’s credits include several films that appeal to the family audience, including Lionsgate’s 2017 hit Wonder, which generated more than $305 million worldwide, as well as Beauty and the Beast and The Muppets.

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