Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Novelist Kristin Hannah has made screen deals for two of her novels. 1492 Films has acquired Home Front, with Chris Columbus attached to direct, and produce with his 1492 cohorts Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe. The book, a bestseller for the sixth consecutive week, is a dramatic exploration of the toll war takes on an ordinary American family. This story is told from the vantage point of a woman who, in addition to being a wife and mother, is a Blackhawk pilot in the National Guard who is called to serve a tour of duty in Iraq. 1492 most recently produced the Oscar-nominated The Help, after acquiring the Kathryn Stockett novel long before it became a publishing phenomenon among female readers. The book was published by St. Martin’s Press.

“I was blown away by this book, I simply could not put it down,” Columbus said. “It told the story about the cost of war from a completely unique perspective: what happens when a wife and mother is called into action and how her family adjusts to life without her…and to a changed life upon her return. Home Front not only portrays the great sacrifices our military makes for us, but depicts so powerfully the hidden sacrifices their families make as well.”

At the same time, Hannah’s novel The Things We Do For Love is being developed by SPB Productions as a possible starring vehicle for Abigail Breslin. Novel is about a destitute and pregnant seventeen year old must make an impossible choice between love and honor. Both of the deals were made by CAA, in conjunction with Andrea Cirillo of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.