Sony Pictures has hired Secretariat director Randall Wallace to develop an adaptation of Todd Burpo’s best selling book, Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, according to Variety.
The supposedly real-life book is about Colton Burpo, who says he visited heaven after a near death experience during an appendectomy. No one believes the boy until he starts telling stories identifying people who have died. Although many will already be rolling their eyes, it’s the sort of movie that will play extremely well in the American heartland.
Joe Roth and Sparkle’s T.D. Jakes are producing, with Chris Parker (Battle of The Year: The Dream Team) providing the screenplay. Wallace is also in talks to helm Walden Media’s WWII movie The Conscientious Objector and is writing Gunslingers, which has Vince Vaughn attached to star.