By Travis Johnson
Australia’s Naomi Watts and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon have teamed up with producer Bruna Papandrea to snag the film rights to the popular book, Penguin Bloom, with Watts also penciled in to star.
The announcement follows the news in September of Witherspoon and Australian Papandrea ceasing their four year production company partnership Pacific Standard, which resulted in films such as Gone Girl and Wild. Whether this latest collaboration will come under the company’s banner is yet to be confirmed.
Penguin Bloom is written by Bradley Trevor Greive with photos by Cameron Bloom. After Bloom’s wife, Sam, was paralysed in an accident, they and their three young sons struggled to cope with the aftermath, until they came together to raise an orphaned magpie chick they dubbed “Penguin”. The life-affirming story was published in book form in April this year and has sold 30,000+ copies. It was published in the UK in October and will be released in the USA and Canada as ‘Penguin the Magpie’ in April 2017. 10% of the book’s royalties go towards spinal cure charities such as as Wings for Life and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. For more information on the book head to its website.
No screenwriter or director are attached as yet to the film, but it is expected to shoot in Australia.
