Scribe and actress teaming for true-life tale.
Deadline is reporting that British author/screenwriter Nick Hornby (‘An Education, ‘About a Boy,’ ‘High Fidelity’) has closed a deal to provide the script for an adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir ‘Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,’ with Reece Witherspoon attached to produce and star.
‘Wild’ tells the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.
Commenting on the addition of Hornby, Witherspoon said: “Nick’s innate blend of humanity and humour are a perfect match for Cheryl’s raw emotional memoir. I look forward to collaborating with both of these talented writers to create a film full of honesty, adventure and self discovery.”
The actress will produce the film with her Pacific Standard partner Bruna Papandrea and Bill Pohlad of River Road Entertainment.