Book-to-screen deals are reported by the Hollywood trades in pieces that dutifully mention the novelists, directors and actors involved but often leave out the people who actually made it happen — the agent or manager who hooked up the players, the producer who optioned it years ago, the book scout whose secret source shared the proposal before book publishers had even seen it.
Below are a few of Hollywood’s most important behind-the-scenes movers, shakers and connection-makers — agents, scouts, managers and execs. Not all of them toil in obscurity, but each contributes mightily to the adaptation process that puts all those pages on the screen.
RACHEL MILLER
founding partner, Haven Entertainment
In this business, it pays to start young. Rachel Miller optioned her first novel, “Deadly Games,” at age 16, using $500 of her bat mitzvah money. At 20 she landed an entry-level job at Endeavor (now William Morris Endeavor). At 23, she co-founded Tom Sawyer Entertainment with her 29-year-old bestie. When the 2008 writers’ strike hit, Tom Sawyer pivoted to developing books in-house, which it then sold to publishers before adapting them for the screen. In 2012, Tom Sawyer merged with Picture Machine to become Haven Entertainment.
“I love to find new writers and help them break into the industry so they can reach the biggest possible audience,” says Miller, who also founded the nonprofit Film2Future with the mission of “empowering underserved teenagers through professional filmmaking, content creation, education and internships.”
Read the rest of Meet 8 Industry Players Behind Hollywood’s Book Adaptation Boom via the LA Times website.
