Although optioning the rights to something is a long way from actually making it, Jason Reitman and his production company, Right Of Way FIlms, have taken the screen rights to Simon Rich’s recently published novel, Elliot Allagash.
THR reports that Reitman is currently only attached to produce and hasn’t yet decided whether to direct. Simon Rich himself is handling the screenplay (his day job in as a writer on SNL), which suggests it’s unlikely Reitman will helm, as he’d have most likely wanted to write the screenplay himself if he was serious about it, especially considering the problems surrounding the writing credits for the Up In The Air script (Reitman wanted solo credit, but the WGA determined that the project’s original screenwriter, Sheldon Turner, should also be named).
The book, ‘offers a satiric take on private schools and the excesses of the rich, centers on Seymour Herson, a boy who is regularly picked on at his private school. He is taken under the wing of the book’s title character, a teen who regularly gets drunk and enjoys villainy.’
As yet Reitman hasn’t officially announced what project he will direct next, although it is known he’s developing an adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day, as well as a film called Whispers In Bedlam and a hockey movie.