Neophyte producer Bella Le and executive producer Robert Lewis Galinsky have enlisted a couple of key creatives from the US to help adapt two Jessica Brody novels into a romantic comedy entitled The Fidelity Files.
Nina Colman will write the screenplay and Los Angeles-based Aaron Jackson will serve as a producer with Le’s Kardia Pictures.
Published in 2008, The Fidelity Files is the saga of a beautiful L.A. woman who goes undercover as a ‘Fidelity Inspector’ to find out who’s faithful and who’s not. The 2010 sequel, Love Under Cover, chronicles the further adventures of the character, Jennifer Hunter.
Le, 22, spotted Love Under Cover in a Melbourne bookshop during the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival. She contacted the American author and her agent, took an option on both novels and Galinsky came aboard as executive producer.
Colman’s screenplay ROM.Com is set up at Exclusive Media with Charlize Theron attached. Another of her projects, romantic comedy Baby Sugarman, is being packaged by producer Kevin McCormick (Gangster Squad, Arthur).
She is in talks with Universal about writing the remake of Mahogany, Berry Gordy’s 1975 movie which starred Diana Ross as a young woman from the slums of Chicago who dreams of becoming one of the world's top fashion designers, for de Passe Entertainment.
The prolific Colman also has three pilot projects in train for US networks: a dark comedy tentatively titled WTF for NBC, Lifetime drama Flesh And Blood about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who infiltrates a powerful New York family, and Book Club, a drama for the CW network based on a documentary about a young woman in New York who starts a book club with three friends, her mother and grandmother.
Jackson comes from a background in development and production, having worked for commercial production house HSI and for numerous LA-based production companies. He studied film and television production at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
“We've been in discussions since January with a variety of writers all keen to handle the project and after several months and many conversations Nina was a unanimous choice,” Galinsky tells IF.
“She 'gets' what we are trying to do 100% and I think she will help bring an amazing story to the screen that will have The Devil Wears Prada meets Sex and the City fans queuing up for what we hope will be the coolest, cleverest, funniest most original rom com in a long time."
Both Galinsky and Colman are repped by the Paradigm agency. He said private investors are funding the costs of engaging Colman and he’s arranging another meeting with investors later this year to raise the funds to hire a director and secure at least one of the key cast.
Brody will be coming out to Australia around that time.