EXCLUSIVE: Novelist-turned-TV writer Megan Abbott is setting up her latest television project after eOne snapped up the rights to her upcoming book The Turnout.
The Turnout is set in the hothouse world of a ballet school led by the Durant sisters, Dara and Marie, and Dara’s husband Charlie. Their connection is intense, forged by a glamorous but troubled family history. But after they hire Derek, a charismatic, possibly shady contractor to renovate the studio, Marie throws herself into an intense affair with him that threatens their tight bonds and brings forward family secrets until an act of violence overturns everything.
The book is set to be released in the summer of 2021, as one of publisher Putnam’s lead fiction titles for next year. The Hasbro-owned Sharp Objects producer pre-emptively picked up the rights and will develop an adaptation. The Turnout is the first in a three-book deal for Abbott and Putnam.
Crime fiction author Abbott has written ten novels including Die A Little and Queenpin as well as Dare Me, a teen drama which was adapted for USA Network and Netflix last year.
She co-created and co-showran the TV version, which was produced by UCP and Michael Lombardo, who is now President of Global Television at eOne. Prior to that, she was a writer on HBO’s The Deuce.
Abbott is represented by Dan Conaway of Writers House, WME, Anonymous Content, and Eric Brooks of Goodman Genow Schenkman Smelkinson & Christopher.
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