‘White Girl Problems’ At Lionsgate Hires Nicholl Fellowship Winning Writers

EXCLUSIVE: Writers Alisha Brophy and Scott Miles, who won this year’s Nicholl’s Fellowship for their screenplay United States of Fuckin’ Awesome, just signed on to adapt Lionsgate’s White Girl Problems. The book, written by “Babe Walker” — who is actually the creation of brothers Tanner and David Oliver Cohen and their friend Lara Schoenhals — was bought by Lionsgate in 2013 for Pitch Perfect producers Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman through their Brownstone Productions banner.

Published by Hyperion in 2012, the book is a pseudo-memoir about a young woman with a huge social media following who melts down one afternoon after spending about a quarter of a million dollars in Barney’s and ends up in shopping rehab, where she decides to write about her life — of excess and meaningless problems. Brophy and Miles will do a Page 1 rewrite, scripting their own version of the bestselling yarn.

The writing assignment itself was a hotly contested open call for screenwriters. Brophy and Miles are repped by Paradigm, Circle of Confusion and attorney Lev Ginsburg.