You know what’s funny? The story of women scorned. There’s nothing that doles out stitches more than a rom-dram-com chiseled from the granite of feminine vengeance. There’s nothing most people love more than watching hilarious comedy classics like John Tucker Must Die, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days*, My Best Friends Wedding and Jaws 3-D.
Since New Line knows how to cook with butter, they’ve tapped Jane O’Brien (sister of some guy named Conan O’Brien) to wreak screen adaptive havoc on the novel In The Stars. Written by Eileen Cook, In The Stars follows a girl who, like most rom-com women being dumped, refuses to accept "her guy" is no longer interested- hence the whole dumping issue. At some point of desperation only sensical in sitcoms and dumb comedies, Sophie (our heroine) decides to become a psychic to manipulate her ex’s new girlfriend with bad info, thus causing a break up enabling Sophie to have another go. Of course, that stunt backfires as in the mean time, all caught up in the web of her selfish hoax, Sophie becomes a popular psychic and must decide if everything she initially wanted is still "in the stars", or whether she cops to being a big fat fraud and finds new love.
I guess it’s good that they’re getting a lady to commit the adaptation to screenplay. Had they gotten a guy, the psychotic ex-girlfriend angle might not have received a whole lot of sympathy, pigeonholing Sophie into a young Glenn Close and losing out on the whole "comedy" angle. With O’Brien however, (she, not he) you’ve got a pedigree including Simpsons writer and Futurama producer, which assures at least some wit, even if the whole concept sounds like a remarkably bad and unfunny sitcom.
Just so you know, O’Brien has also previously written the screenplay for Love Sucks (Amen, sister– all that "love is great junk" is hooey!), which is also currently being produced.
*If you’ve had the misfortune of seeing and remembering it, has there ever been a more stupid faux ad campaign tag line devised than "Frost Yourself"? The thought such a line would even sound clever or receive buy-off makes me cringe with embarrassment for not only the originator of the line, but Betty Crocker’s l’il tubs o’ frosting as well.