Ron Nyswaner To Script Curtis Sittenfeld Novel 'American Wife'

EXCLUSIVE: Ron Nyswaner has been set to adapt American Wife, the bestselling novel by Curtis Sittenfeld. The project is being funded by Red Crown Productions, whose Daniel Crown and Daniela Taplin Lundberg are producing with Marissa McMahon’s Kamala Films.

Nyswaner, best known for scripting Philadelphia and The Painted Veil, will adapt a novel that follows the First Lady as she reviews her life on a day in which a scandalous secret threatens her husband’s presidency, and their marriage. When the book was published in 2009, speculation was the characters were modeled after President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura: the husband grew up in a privileged background, was a hard-drinking sports team owner who became a Born Again Christian, moved from governor to the White House and backed an unpopular war. Taplin Lundberg said the book had the ingredients to be a modern day The Way We Were. Red Crown wrapped production on the Julianne Moore-Alexander Skarsgard-starrer What Maisie Knew and just wrapped the Christopher Neil-directed Goats, which stars David Duchovny and Vera Farmiga. Kamala recently acquired Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Nyswaner is repped by UTA.