In one of the buzziest books of the year, Netflix has won a massive bidding war to nab the screen rights to Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden.
But it’s not just the book deal, said to be in the seven figures, according to sources, that caused a stir. It’s the talent attached to it.
Gwyneth Paltrow, enjoying a career resurgence thanks to her work in the multi-Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme, is on board to star and executive produce the adaptation. Heidi Schreck, the playwright who wrote the Tony Award-nominated Broadway play What the Constitution Means to Me, is on board to pen the script.
Stacey Sher will produce. Sher is a veteran producer who earned best picture Oscar nominations for 2000’s Erin Brockovich and 2012’s Django Unchained, the latter part of a trio of Quentin Tarantino films she was involved with. She is also producing the upcoming Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity as well as the David Fincher/Tarantino collaboration The Adventures of Cliff Booth.
Burden was a Harvard-educated lawyer who came from a life of privilege. Vanderbilts and Paleys were in her blood. Her grandmother was a Truman Capote swan. And she married into wealth, giving up her working career to raise three children and be a devoted wife in a life that included a home in Martha’s Vinyard and private clubs.
Then, after the first week of lockdown during the pandemic, her loving husband of 20 years came to her and said he was leaving her. He didn’t even have an interest in custody of the children. She was abruptly and inexplicably shut out.
Burden did not, however, decide to remain unseen. She wrote about her travails in a New York Times Modern Love essay, which was much talked about. Then wrote Strangers.
Belle Burden
Charmaine Burden
The book, which arrived with plenty of publicity, has been praised for the honest emotional telling of the shame she felt and the strength it took to move forward after a relationship disintegrates. It debuted at the top of the New York Times best-seller list and has remained in the top 10 for nine weeks now.
The book became a hot Hollywood property in mid-February as studios A24, Sony, Warner Bros. along with Amazon and Netflix, plus Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity, were running down the aisle to put a ring on the rights to the instant bestseller.
In the end, Netflix prevailed, with the involvement of Lighthouse Management + Media, which represents Paltrow along with CAA, being key to the deal.
UTA brokered the auction, repping both Burden and Schreck, the latter of whom also previously worked on television dramas Nurse Jackie and Billions, and the Amazon comedy series I Love Dick. She is also penning a live-action She-Ra series for Amazon.
Burden is additionally repped by Brettne Bloom at The Book Group while Schreck is additionally repped by Curate Management.
