Gabrielle Union, Breaking In and Being Mary Jane star and producer, has just acquired the film rights to the YA novel “500 Words or Less” alongside Rebel Maverick and Amyale, according to Deadline.
Union will produce the project under her I’ll Have Another Productions banner, with Holly Shakoor Fleischer overseeing development on behalf of the company. Manaal Khan and Matt Nicholas will be producing for Amyale and Rebel Maverick, respectively.
Written entirely in verse, the book, which was released last week via Simon Pulse, centers on Nic Chen, a Chinese-American high school senior who attempts to salvage her reputation among her Ivy League-obsessed classmates by writing their college admission essays and in the process learns big truths about herself.
“I am such a fan of young adult stories in general but this novel really got me. It is beautifully written entirely in verse and the exploration of identity and what that means to you and those around you is something that my production company is focused on exploring with all the stories we choose to tell. This one really hit home and I’m excited to be part of bringing it to life as accurately as we possibly can,” Union stated.
Union is certainly no stranger to the Young Adult genre having appeared in many 90s teen-centric series as well as in the pop culture classic films like She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Bring It On.
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Union most recently starred in the Universal thriller Breaking In, which she also produced, which received generally negative reviews but was a box office hit, with the majority of critics still praising her performance in the film. She will next be seen in the two-hour movie finale of her acclaimed series Being Mary Jane, which has yet to set a premiere date, and the upcoming TV spinoff of the hit Bad Boys franchise, L.A.’s Finest, which was recently picked up by Spectrum for a 13-episode first season.
Most recently, she co-starred alongside Alec Baldwin, Jena Malone, Christian Slater, and Jeffrey Wright in the Emilio Estevez-directed drama, The Public, which premiered at TIFF, and starred in and produced the Universal thriller, Breaking In.
(Excerpts) Read More at: Deadline.com and ComingSoon.net