〉 The Hunger Games producer sets her sights on the cyber crime thriller based on a true story.
After spending a few years in the hands of Mark Wahlberg and Universal, THE HACKER IS WATCHING has made its way to 20th Century Fox where Nina Jacobson will produce under her Color Force banner. The cyber thriller, based on the 2012 GQ article by David Kushner, is centered around a computer hacker who uses webcams and speakers to spy on the students at a university.
Wahlberg and his producing partner Stephen Levinson originally set up the project at Universal under their Leverage Management company, but when the project stalled and the option expired, Jacobson scooped it up. Although Straight Outta Compton scribe Jonathan Herman previously worked on an adaptation of the script, it appears as though Jacobson plans to start from scratch with the search for a new writer underway.
Jacobson and partner Brad Simpson will produce with Allison Friedman through Color Force, while Mikey Ireland and Sara Rastogi will oversee for the studio.
Jacobson – who has a first-look deal with Fox 2000 – is perhaps best known for producing the four installments of the blockbuster Hunger Games franchise. On the television side, Jacobson was recently an executive producer on Ryan Murphy’s The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, which is now drawing serious Emmy consideration. Color Force is currently in development with Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go Bernadette, an adaptation of the best-selling novel The Goldfinch, and a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, which will re-team Jacobson with Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence.
Kushner is the prolific journalist and author whose work frequently appears in GQ, Wired, Playboy, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone, where he serves as a contributing editor. In addition to Hacker, his article Zora Tells All: The Real Story Behind The Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted is currently in development with James Franco, who is also attached to direct, while another hacker-centric story, Anonymous vs. Steubenville, is in the works with Brad Pitt’s Plan B.
Kushner is repped by Gotham/Principal.
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Josh Lyons | Managing Editor
