Sofia Coppola To Adapt Fairyland
By Katie Bishop
The Coppolas' film studio, American Zoetrope, has obtained the screen rights to Alysia Abbott's Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father. Sofia Coppola is set to adapt the memoir with her long-time friend and photographer, Andrew Durham, and to produce it with her brother and Zoetrope co-owner, Roman Coppola. Roman has also produced Sofia's films Somewhere and The Bling Ring.
The critically acclaimed memoir, a coming-of-age story about a young Abbott growing up in San Francisco with her homosexual father both before and during the AIDS crisis which would later claim her father's life, was published in June last year. Sofia has explored the father-daughter relationship in her 2010 film, Somewhere. However, Fairyland seems unlike anything she's done before.
Abbott grew up in San Francisco's gay scene with her father, Steve Abbott, a widowed poet and LGBT activist, during the 1970s and 80s.
Alysia Abbott and her father Steve Abbott
"I love the book Fairyland; it's a sweet and unique love story of a girl and her dad, both growing up together in 1970s San Francisco," Sofia said, "I think it will make an engaging and touching movie on a subject I've never seen before."
Abbott seemed equally as enthusiastic about the adaptation, saying "I'm delighted that Sofia Coppola and Zoetrope are going to create the film version of Fairyland. Sofia's understanding of the feminine perspective and the artistic vision that she shares with Andrew Durham make them ideal partners to make this movie. I could not be happier."
Abbott's agent, David Patterson, added that "Elizabeth Riley, the book’s publicist at Norton, had thought out loud about Sofia Coppola as the dream filmmaker for it with us — Alysia, me, and Amy Cherry, the book’s editor — back at one of the book’s launch parties. So I just want to say that sometimes when publicists talk, angels listen. This is an absolutely ideal result and partnership."
It has not yet been announced who is set to direct the film, but it would be a first for Sofia to write and produce a feature with no plans to direct it, so many have predicted that she may be sitting in the director's chair once again very soon.
Alysia Abbott and her father Steve Abbott
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Fairyland, Alysia Abbott, and Steve Abbott photographs courtesy of W.W. Norton & Company Inc.