EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Sony’s 3000 Pictures has acquired the bestselling hot summer novel Dolly All the Time. Gemma Burgess will adapt the novel by Annabel Monaghan, and Temple Hill Entertainment is set to produce with Annika Patton overseeing it for the producer.

Dolly All the Time came out at the beginning of the summer and quickly hit the bestseller lists. Dolly Brick has never met a problem she couldn’t solve. Not when her mom left when she was 12, and not at 39 when she moves with her son back to Whitfield, RI for the summer to keep her dad and brother from losing the family home.

So when she comes across Stewart Whitfield — annoyingly handsome scion of the Whitfield family — with a flat tire and at the wrong end of a very public  breakup, it’s in her nature to help. She comes away with an offer he suggests, which has her posing as his girlfriend. It ends up being more than either of them bargained for, because as public dinners and high society benefits turn into sunset boat rides and kisses, real sparks commence.

Deal has an uplifting backstory for the screenwriter Burgess, about handling adversity and writing yourself out of a jam. Burgess moved to the UK to be showrunner for My Lady Jane, the show she created for Amazon. Shortly after she moved her family to join her for a second season, Amazon canceled the show, despite superb reviews.

She stayed on the other side of the pond, and hustled. It has paid off. Burgess is currently adapting the K-drama phenomenon Crash Landing on You for Netflix and Skydance; she is adapting her short story Doomed as a series for Netflix with Busy B producing; she also created the series Smooth Criminals with Disney/20th and Drew Goddard; she’s got Liars for Searchlight; and Friends Like These for A24 and Gloria Sanchez. On the feature side, Burgess just finished writing Red, White & Royal Blue 2 for Amazon. She also continues to write novels (she’s had five of them published with Macmillan and Harper Collins that hit the bestseller lists). She is repped by UTA, Kaplan / Perrone Entertainment and Felker McGinnis & Ryan.

Sony-based Elizabeth Gabler’s 3000 Pictures and Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey’s Temple Hill have had great success turning books into movies. For 3000, that includes Where the Crawdads Sing and People We Meet on Vacation, the latter an adaptation of the Emily Henry novel that is Emmy-nominated. Upcoming is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun directed by Taika Waititi and starring Jenna Ortega. 

Temple Hill’s book adaptations range from The Twilight Saga to The Maze Runner and The Fault in Our Stars. 3000 Pictures and Temple Hull previously teamed on The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, The Longest Ride, The Hate U Give, and Love, Simon.  

Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.

Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.

Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );