The Tracking Board’s Daily Debrief (03.22.17)

The Tracking Board and Roadmap Writers Opens New Set of Pitch Sessions

The Tracking Board is excited to announce another opportunity with Roadmap Writers for screenwriters to pitch both film and television scripts to four of the best Hollywood insiders in the business.

The State of the Comic Book Industry (Part Five)

Valiant Entertainment is, in fact, not just surviving in the marketplace, it’s actually thriving. Thanks to a specific strategy to publish a limited amount of books each month, thereby focusing on quality storytelling over quantity of market share, a company that only began its latest run of publications five years ago now averages higher sales per book than any other publisher outside of the Big Two.

Insecure Star Issa Rae Joins Bill Hader in Empress of Serenity

Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) will direct the film, which stars Hader as a man whose elaborate plan to win back his ex-wife is upended when he’s guilted into a month long mega-cruise with his widowed father.

More News From Around The Web

• Laura Dern is in talks to co-star in director Justin Kelly’s biopic JT Leroy, the true story behind writer Laura Albert’s made-up literary persona JT Leroy. (Deadline)

• Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie is in negotiations to join the cast of Darkest Minds, Fox’s adaptation of the YA trilogy by Alexandra Bracken. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Kaitlyn Dever has joined Steve Carell and up-and-comer Timothee Chalamet in Beautiful Boy, the Amazon Studios drama being produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B banner. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Forest Whitaker has joined Codeblack Films’ untitled Angela Davis biopic movie project as an executive producer. Lionsgate’s Codeblack acquired the movie rights last year to “Angela Davis: An Autobiography” and set up the project with Nina Yang Bongiovi. (Variety)

• Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman have acquired movie rights to Lincoln In The Bardo, the bestselling novel from George Saunders that hit shelves last month. The pair will produce the adaptation with Saunders, and no director or cast has been set. (Deadline)

• Todd Strauss-Schulson, who directed New Line’s 2011 movie A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, is returning to the company for Isn’t It Romantic, a romantic comedy that has Rebel Wilson attached to star. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Blumhouse Television and Amblin Television have partnered to jointly option the rights to Annie Jacobsen’s upcoming book Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Investigations Into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis to develop as a TV series. (Deadline)

• Paramount has picked up rights to The Pro, a graphic novel by Garth Ennis, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. Erwin Stoff of 3 Arts is producing and Zoe McCarthy has been hired to write the screenplay. (Deadline)