Screen Gems has bought Beautiful Girl, a scary genre thriller from Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Hours.”
Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing through their Red Wagon banner.
The story concerns a shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes. She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher’s obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her.
“While I was writing about Virginia Wolff, my mind was never far removed from the idea of girls in bikinis being hacked up by guys wearing hockey masks, and I vowed that if I ever had a good idea, I would write one of these scary movies,” Cunningham told the trade.
