Former CBS Entertainment Chairman Nina Tassler and veteran producer Denise Di Novi have teamed to launch PatMa Productions. PatMa, named after Di Novi and Tassler's mothers, Pat and Norma, respectively, is described as “a multi-platform independent studio aimed at amplifying diverse voices.”  The studio will create…

EXCLUSIVE: In a near-seven-figure deal, DreamWorks has acquired Highway One, a spec script by The Shallows scribe Tony Jaswinski, with Denise Di Novi attached to direct the female action thriller. The film will be produced by Lynn Harris and Matti Leshem through their Weimaraner Republic banner. The producers teamed…

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has acquired screen rights to A Discovery of Witches, the bestselling novel by Deborah Harkness. Denise DiNovi and Allison Greenspan will produce. The debut novel is about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch and a mysterious manuscript that draws them together. They’ll put a writer on it…

EXCLUSIVE: Karen Croner has been set to script Hello Ghost, the film inspired by the Korean comedy about a man whose failed suicide attempt allows him to see ghosts who haunt him until he grants each of them one wish. Chris Columbus will direct a film that will be financed by CJ Entertainment, which has a first-look…

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has acquired The Best of Me, the next novel by Nicholas Sparks. No numbers were available, but I believe the deal is similar to the one that Relativity Media made to win an auction for Sparks' Safe Haven (which just landed Lasse Hallstrom as director). That deal was in the vicinity of $2 million…