‘The Light Between Oceans’ Novel Acquired By DreamWorks

BREAKING: DreamWorks Studios is in exclusive talks to acquire M.L. Stedman’s debut novel The Light Between Oceans, studio co-chairman/CEO Stacey Snider confirmed. Harry Potter series producer David Heyman will produce with Jeffrey Clifford. Rosie Alison, who brought the book into Heyday, will executive produce.

On a remote Australian island in the years following World War I, a lighthouse keeper and his wife are faced with a moral dilemma when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a 2-month-old infant. When they decide to raise the child as their own, the consequences of their choice are devastating.

“M.L. Stedman has crafted a visually stunning and emotionally harrowing love story with a confounding moral dilemma at its center,” said Snider. “We were completely transfixed by the story and instantly imagined it as a sweeping, classic film. David Heyman is an ideal partner to bring Stedman’s story to the screen.”

Said Heyman: “I was deeply affected by M.L. Stedman’s powerful and primal story of human choices and their consequences. It’s a novel which tackles grand emotions, but everything is rooted within an intimate yet universal story of marital and parental love. I am excited to be working with such sympathetic partners in Stacey and the team at DreamWorks.”

The book was published last July by Scribner and is on the way toward being translated into nearly 30 languages. Curtis Brown’s Nick Marston and Conville and Walsh’s Sue Armstrong are making the deal.