Bruna Papandrea Options Tina Brown’s ‘Vanity Fair Diaries’ For Limited TV Series

Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories has optioned Tina Brown’s upcoming book, The Vanity Fair Diaries, for development as a limited series.

The book, to be published next month by Holt, follows the British editor’s rise and eight-year reign at the helm of Vanity Fair in the 1980s, when she arrived from London scarcely out of her 20s and was tasked with rescuing the struggling magazine and establish herself in a male-dominated industry. The book is based on Brown’s detailed diaries from that era, which provide an in-depth perspective of the remarkable turnaround.

Producers will be going out to writers, filmmakers and cast shortly. Papandrea and Brown will executive produce and Jeanne Snow and Casey Haver will oversee for Made Up Stories.

“Tina’s singular voice immediately swept me up into the intoxicating, pulse-pounding energy of New York media culture in the ’80s – the glittering social landscape, the thrill of creative rebirth and the relentless quest for success,” said Papandrea.“Her diaries form a riveting, at-times-prophetic portrait of the opulent decade that shaped our modern media, told through the eyes of a woman who entered this world as an outsider but nevertheless smashed through professional barriers left and right. I am overjoyed to be working with Tina and cannot wait to translate her legacy to the screen.”

Papandrea recently executive produced Big Little Lies and shared a best limited series Emmy for the HBO drama, which also was based on a book.

“I was obsessed with Big Little Lies and so admiring of all the ground it broke,” Brown said. “Bruna is a producer of vision and dynamism with wonderful taste as all her past work has proved. When we met to talk about my book, she had me at hello.”

Made Up Stories recently acquired Elizabeth Klehforth’s debut novel The House on Langley Lake and just wrapped production on Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale. In TV, Papandrea and Made Up Stories are currently in production on TNT pilot Deadlier Than The Male written by Harriet Warner and starring Amy Brenneman.

Papandrea’s producing credits include Wild, Warm Bodies, Gone Girl, and Milk. The deals were negotiated by WME.

Brown, as well as fellow New York magazine editor Anna Wintour, were supposed to be the subjects of All That Glitters, a Bravo event series, which was recently shelved.