Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Sam Mendes’ Neal Street Productions are partnering to produce the feature film based on Joseph O’Neill’s novel Netherland for Focus Features. Mr. Mendes and partner Pippa Harris are producers for Neal Street , and Ms. Winfrey and company president Kate Forte are producers for Harpo, which optioned the novel last year upon publication. Focus will hold worldwide rights to Netherland. Focus CEO James Schamus made the announcement today.
Academy Award-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) is scripting the adaptation, which is being developed with Mr. Mendes as a potential director. Mr. Mendes won the Best Director Oscar for American Beauty.
Neal Street recently signed a two-year first-look deal with Focus Features. Focus president of production John Lyons and senior vice president, international production Teresa Moneo are overseeing all Neal Street projects, including Netherland.
Mr. O’Neill received the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for Netherland, which is his third novel (following This Is the Life and The Breezes). Mr. Hampton was last year again an Academy Award nominee, for his screenplay adaptation of Focus’ Atonement. In Netherland, set in early 21st-century New York City , a lonely expatriate finds himself drawn to the sport of cricket, forming an unlikely friendship and discovering a rich world of immigrant culture previously unknown to him.