EXCLUSIVE: Less than a year after putting up his own shingle, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has picked up another novel for adaptation.
The Game of Thrones star’s Ill Kippers Productions has optioned the just published It Will Be Just Us by Jo Kaplan. The deal was finalized just before Labor Day after negotiations by Coster-Waldau’s Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern attorneys David Weber and Lon Sorensen and Kaplan’s team of John W. Beach and Kevin Cleary at Gravity Squared Entertainment and The Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, I’ve learned.
“We were extremely excited when we discovered this book,” said Coster-Waldau to Deadline today of the September 8 released Gothic novel. “It is one of the most original haunted house stories that we’ve read or seen,” the Ill Kippers co-founder added.
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“Jo Kaplan’s voice is grounded but compelling, and just down-right scary!’ the WME-repped actor stated. “And the adjacent historically-based story lines about slaves escaping to a land thought otherwise uninhabitable, along with the message that the past can come back to haunt you, seemed incredibly timely and we were inspired.”
Set in a decaying mansion surrounded by swamps, Kaplan’s Crooked Lane Books published novel finds two sisters battling a house bathed in death and legacy as new life is about to come into the world. Ill Kippers VP and Head of Development Jeffrey Chassen and Abby Ex will co-produce the project that the company plans to make of the book. Whether that ends up being a movie or a TV series is TBD.
Formed several months after GoT came to its blockbuster conclusion on HBO, the Jo Derrick co-founded Ill Kippers snagged the rights to Helene Dunbar’s 1980s set coming of age novel We Are Lost and Found right out of the gate, as Deadline exclusively reported at the time.
With Saban Films picking up the Coster-Waldau starring The Silencing earlier this year, the Emmy nominated actor is heading into production next on an Untitled Greenland expedition film that he and Derrick co-wrote. The flick will shoot in Iceland later this year or early 2021 with Coster-Waldau starring.
