Bright Young Women: Jessica Knoll’s Ted Bundy thriller novel heads to TV

Author Jessica Knoll’s novel Luckiest Girl Alive was recently turned into a film that was released through the Netflix streaming service, and now Deadline reports that Knoll has secured a deal with Bruna Papandrea‘s Made Up Stories, Eric Feig’s Picturestart, and Fifth Season to make a television series based on her Ted Bundy thriller novel Bright Young Women. Knoll will be writing and executive producing the adaptation.

Bright Young Women was just published by Simon & Schuster’s Marysue Rucci Books on September 19th and went right onto the New York Times Best Seller list. Inspired by true events, the novel is about the women whose lives were forever changed by Ted Bundy’s cross-country killing sprees. Opening on the night of Bundy’s attack on a Florida State University sorority house in the early morning hours of 1978, the story follows sorority president Pamela Schumacher as she seeks answers to questions that remain even after four decades, culminating in a new narrative about the so-called brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle—one that suggests that it was the women whose lives he cut short who were the exceptional ones.

Made Up Stories’ Jeanne Snow and Casey Haver will be overseeing the TV adaptation with Samie Kim Falvey and Julia Hammer of Picturestart. Knoll also worked with Made Up Stories and Picturestart on Luckiest Girl Alive.

Papandrea and Feig provided the following statement: “We are thrilled to re-team with Jessica Knoll on her brilliantly subversive new novel Bright Young Women after the career highlight that was producing Luckiest Girl Alive together. Jessica is the rare writer with the boldness and the skill to take on a true crime story that has been so mythologized in American culture that we’ve all accepted it as fact – until now. Bright Young Women is a powerful rallying cry for women everywhere, the kind of novel that unleashes a cathartic rage at how society gets the story wrong too often, and usually at the expense of women.“

Knoll added: “Eight years ago, I was a first-time novelist with ambitions of becoming a first-time screenwriter. Bruna and Erik believed in my voice and gave me that shot, and I remain in awe of their shrewd creative instincts and their drive for telling compelling, important stories that stick with you long after the credits roll. I can’t imagine adapting my new novel with anyone else, not least because Erik and Bruna are wildly talented partners—they also bring a sense of warmth and comradery to the development process, and I feel infinitely lucky to have them by my side.“

In addition to the Bright Young Women adaptation, Knoll is writing the thriller I Think My Mother-in-Law is Trying to Kill Me, which is based on a Reddit short story for Sony.

How does Bright Young Women sound to you? Have you read the book – and if so, what do you think of it getting the TV treatment? Let us know by leaving a comment below.