Sony's 3000 Pictures Lands Bestseller 'Dolly All the Time' with Gemma Burgess to Adapt

Sony's 3000 Pictures has acquired the novel Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan and tapped Gemma Burgess to write the screenplay adaptation, according to Deadline. The deal landed in a competitive situation — industry shorthand for multiple studios vying for the same property. Temple Hill Entertainment, the production company behind The Twilight Saga and The Fault in Our Stars, is set to produce.

Published at the beginning of the summer by G.P. Putnam's Sons, Dolly All the Time quickly climbed the bestseller lists and was selected as a Good Morning America Book Club Pick. The novel follows Dolly Brick, a 39-year-old who moves back to Whitfield, Rhode Island, with her son for the summer to prevent her father and brother from losing the family home. The plot turns on Dolly posing as the girlfriend of Stewart Whitfield, scion of the town's founding family — a arrangement that promises plenty of small-town comedy and complication.

For Burgess, the assignment adds to a remarkably full slate. She just finished writing Red, White & Royal Blue 2 for Amazon and is currently adapting the Korean drama Crash Landing on You for Netflix and Skydance. She is also developing her short story Doomed as a Netflix series with Busy B producing, has Liars set up at Searchlight, Friends Like These at A24 and Gloria Sanchez, and created Smooth Criminals with Disney/20th Television and Drew Goddard. Burgess is herself a bestselling novelist — five of her books, published by Macmillan and HarperCollins, have hit the bestseller lists.

Her path to this point carries its own Hollywood irony. Burgess moved to the UK to serve as showrunner on My Lady Jane, the series she created for Amazon. Shortly after her family relocated to join her for what was expected to be a second season, Amazon cancelled the show. The film side of her career has shown no such turbulence.

The partnership behind the adaptation is a familiar one. 3000 Pictures, a Sony-based company led by Elizabeth Gabler, and Temple Hill, led by Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, have previously collaborated on The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, The Longest Ride, The Hate U Give, and Love, Simon. 3000 Pictures has built its identity on book-to-film adaptations, including Where the Crawdads Sing and the Emmy-nominated People We Meet on Vacation. Its upcoming slate includes Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, directed by Taika Waititi and starring Jenna Ortega.

Annika Patton will oversee the project for Temple Hill. No release date, director, or cast has been announced. The film is in the earliest stage of development — acquisition and screenwriting — which means audiences are likely two years or more from seeing it on a screen.

For now, the book itself is the draw. A 400-page paperback priced at $20, Dolly All the Time sits on shelves as a GMA Book Club Pick, with Monaghan a New York Times bestselling author and Library Reads Hall of Fame inductee. The film rights were the prize; Sony and Temple Hill won them.