Mike Fleming

kristen_wiig-1Saturday Night Live cast member Kristen Wiig is using her own money to option Clown Girl, the 2007 Monica Drake novel that Wiig will adapt into a feature script. She wants to play the heroine, Nita, a clown in crisis who works street fairs as Sniffles the Clown. Nita is barely surviving in her hometown of Baloneytown, pining for a dream man who used her to finance his attendance at clown college,. As a result, she struggles to live and tries to resist the potentially lucrative prostitution trade involving clown fetishists. The dark novel was published by Hawthorne Press in 2007 and the option deal is being handled by Inkwell Management.

While few female cast-members have flourished after their SNL runs, Wiig—who does some of the edgiest work the show has seen in years—is getting a real bigscreen chance.  It helps that Wiig, like Tina Fey, is writing her own projects. She next co-stars with Will Forte and Ryan Phillippe in the SNL-transfer MacGruber. Her big opportunity comes at Universal, which is making an untitled comic vehicle for her that will be directed by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow and Barry Mendel. Wiig co-wrote the script with Annie Mumolo, and will play a maid of honor who battles a bridesmaid for the attention and approval of the bride. Jon Hamm, Rose Byrne and Dianne Wiest are circling roles.