‘Orphan Train’ Optioned By Broad Green; ‘Temple Grandin’ Scribe Christopher Monger To Adapt

Broad Green Pictures has optioned feature rights for Christina Baker Kline’s best-selling novel Orphan Train. Temple Grandin scribe Christopher Monger will write the script. Groundswell Productions’ Michael London and Janice Williams are producing.

Published in 2013, Orphan Train weaves a fictional tale out of factual events. Between 1854 and 1929, trains carrying orphans ran regularly from cities on the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Vivian Daly, a 91-year-old Irish immigrant who as a child was shipped from New York City to Minnesota, develops a friendship with Molly Ayer, a 17-year-old on the verge of aging out of the foster care system in present-day Maine. The teen is assigned the task of helping Vivian clean out her attic as required community service. Their parallel paths bring them together, and a secret is exposed that has haunted Vivian her entire life.

Monger also scripted The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain. Groundswell Productions’ latest film is the Jay Roach-directed Bryan Cranston starrer Trumbo, which gets a November 6 release through Bleecker Street.