Lauren Graham Picks Up YA Novel ‘Windfall’ And Will Adapt As Feature

EXCLUSIVE: Lauren Graham, actress and New York Times best-selling author, has optioned the just-released novel Windfall by prolific YA author Jennifer E. Smith. Graham will adapt the book into a feature-length screenplay for her production company, Good Game Productions.

Published by Delacorte Press, Windfall is the story of Alice, who has been in love with her best friend, Teddy, for years. On his 18th birthday, she buys him a lottery ticket on a lark, and to their surprise, he ends up winning $140M, which changes everything.

Smith has penned nine books, including The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. Her work has been translated into 33 languages, and five of her novels are currently in development for film including Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between.

This is not the first time Graham has adapted books to screen. She adapted the novel The Royal We for CBS Films, for which she is also producing, and she adapted her first novel Someday, Someday Maybe for the CW in 2014. She also is developing Wedding for One, which she wrote with Jennie Snyder Urman, for Lakeshore Entertainment.

Last year, Graham released her second book and first work of nonfiction, Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) — a collection of humorous and heartfelt essays that was on the New York Times Best Sellers list for multiple weeks. Her debut novel, Someday, Someday,  Maybe, the story of a struggling young actor trying to achieve her dreams in New York City, was called “a charmer of a first novel” by the Wall Street Journal and was also an instant New York Times bestseller.

In television, the Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life actress was the lead of Fox’s single-camera comedy pilot Linda From HR, which did not go to series, and will recur on the upcoming new season of Larry David’s HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

Graham is repped ICM Partners and John Carrabino Management with attorney Adam Kaller. Smith is repped ICM Partners.