Aaron Magnani Developing Film Adaptation Of Walker Percy Novel ‘The Second Coming’; Peter Arneson Set As Screenwriter

EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Magnani has optioned screen rights to Walker Percy’s New York Times bestseller The Second Coming, with plans to develop the novel for film.

He’s currently in search of a director for the adaptation and will produce via under his Aaron Magnani Productions banner. Peter Arneson adapted the script and will executive produce.

The story centers on a wealthy, suicidal widower who searches for proof of God but finds much more when he meets a young woman fugitive from a mental hospital. Influenced by the real-life suicides of Percy’s father and grandfather and suspected suicide of his mother, the plot combines comedy, tragedy and romance, with themes of alienation and redemption.

“This story is very relatable to the world we have been living in,” said Magnani. “And the adaptation is as much a director’s piece as an actor’s piece and incredible character study.”

Percy was one of the most prominent American writers of the 20th century, also authoring such works of fiction as The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World, Lancelot and The Thanatos Syndrome prior to his passing in 1990. His many honors include the National Book Award, the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Jefferson Award, and bronze statues and plaques in Louisiana and Mississippi. John Malkovich is attached to play Percy in the forthcoming film Thelma from director Ken Kwapis.

Magnani was an executive producer on 2017 Sundance pic The Last Word, starring Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried. Other projects in the works from the producer include the baseball-themed family feature Rally Caps, starring Amy Smart and Judd Hirsch, which is currently in post; an adaptation of Laura Munson’s novel Willa’s Grove, scripted by Sarah Hopkins; a television series based on Margaret Truman’s New York Times bestselling book series, Capital Crimes, with Emmy-winning writer Adam Mazer; an adaptation of the Gearbreakers book series for TV with Transformers producer Don Murphy; and a biographical series about Hattie McDaniel.

Arneson is a Nicholl Fellowship semifinalist who previously adapted Dane Huckelbridge’s acclaimed romantic adventure novel Castle of Water for Magnani.

Magnani is repped by Paul Miloknay at Miloknay Weiner; Arneson by Matthew Jacobs at Bruns Brennan Berry.