Heartbreak for Genius

To be honest, I never really wanted the film adaptation of A HEART-BREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS to get made. Dave Eggers wasn’t writing the screenplay (based on his book which was a Pultizer Prize finalist) and I always doubted very much that anyone could do justice to his incredibly unique style of writing. The book – about Eggers’ real life raising of his younger brother in the wake of the death of his mother, a month after the death of his father – had been optioned back in 2002 by New Line, with Nick Hornby and D.V. DeVincentis adapting it for the screen. Talking to EW about his book ‘What is the What’, Eggers talked briefly about how dead the movie was: (Q: The Heartbreaking Work movie is gone now?) Yeah, which is no tragedy for me. The option ran out. So that will probably be the end of that. In the meantime, the 826’s were born out of the generosity of the New Line film company. I think everybody sees it that way, and those guys know that they gave birth to that nonprofit, and helped fund it, so I think that everybody should feel good. (Q: You don’t seem like a guy who was desperate to cast himself in the movie version of his own life.) [Laughs] Oh, man! It was good news when that option ran out. He also talks a little about his second book, ‘And You Shall Know Our Velocity’ in the interview, which you can check out right HERE.