After a competitive pursuit, Annapurna Pictures, in tandem with actress Rooney Mara, has optioned the New York Times bestseller “A House in the Sky” by co-authors Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett. The memoir will be developed as a starring vehicle for Mara, who will also serve as a producer alongside Annapurnas Megan Ellison. Annapurnas Chelsea Barnard will be the executive overseeing the day-to-day development and production of the project.
“A House in the Sky” is the dramatic and redemptive memoir of Amanda Lindhout, whose deep passion for exploration of the world’s most remote and perilous places, took an unexpected turn when she was abducted in 2008 in Mogadishu, Somalia by a rebel terrorist group. An astoundingly intimate and harrowing account of Lindhouts fifteen months in captivity, “A House in the Sky” illuminates the psychology, motivations, and desperate extremism of her captors all the while as she is kept in chains, nearly starved, and subjected to unthinkable abuse. Published by Scribner, “A House in the Sky” is an international bestseller and was named by Amazon as one of the top 10 books published in 2013. The book was first brought to the attention of Mara through her team at Management 360 who then approached Annapurna.
“Rooney Mara is someone whose talent and adventurous spirit I admire deeply. I’m thrilled that she’s teaming with Annapurna Pictures to bring ‘A House in the Sky’ to the screen. I can’t imagine a better match,” says Lindhout.
Rooney Mara is best known for her Academy Award-nominated performance in the David Fincher adaptation of the Steig Larsson trilogy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She recently wrapped production alongside Cate Blanchett in Carol, the adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s romance novel “The Price of Salt” directed by Todd Haynes. Mara is currently filming Pan where she portrays Tiger Lily in Joe Wright’s origin story of the classic “Peter Pan.”
