That didn’t take long.
Less than a month after Michael Zadoorian‘s Route 66 road-trip book, “The Leisure Seeker,” was published, the Hollywood Reporter says that Jens Jonsson has been enlisted to write and direct the film version for Sharp Independent.
The film is expected to follow in the footsteps of a number of recent hits about the rigors and redemption of aging, including “The Bucket List” and “Gran Torino.”
Jonsson is a mainstay on the global fest scene. The Swede took the world dramatic jury prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival for his coming-of-age dramedy “The King of Ping Pong” and won a Silver Bear in Berlin in 2002 for his short “Brother of Mine.”
The script for “Seeker” is being hammered out, and Sharp hopes to shoot by summer. A large part of the story takes place in Detroit, where the couple is from, and producers aim to shoot in Michigan, capitalizing on the state’s tax rebate and efforts to create a production hub.
That’s an amazingly quick turnaround, if it happens as expected. Zadoorian’s book was optioned for film nine months before its publication.
But that’s the thing about an indie film — it doesn’t have to go through as much corporate bureaucracy to get it going. And Sharp hiring an up-and-coming director instead of a Hollywood hotshot will make it cheaper, too.
As an aside, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sharp also shoots a big chunk of the film in New Mexico, which offers a lot of incentives to movie producers.
I think the story is compelling, and if the script follows the book closely, the film has a really good chance of being a sleeper hit.
My review of “The Leisure Seeker” is here. My interview with Zadoorian is here.