Yahoo Finance ‘Crown’ Producer Suzanne Mackie’s Orchid Pictures Options Alice Feeney Thriller ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ For Netflix (EXCLUSIVE)
“The Crown” executive producer Suzanne Mackie has landed one of the first projects out of her newly formed production banner, Orchid Pictures, scoring the option on author Alice Feeney’s highly anticipated thriller “Rock Paper Scissors.”
Feeney is the New York Times-bestselling author behind “His & Hers,” which is also being adapted into a series by Jessica Chastain’s Freckle Films, Kristen Campo and Endeavor Content, who snapped up rights last year. Her debut novel “Sometimes I Lie,” which has been translated into more than 20 languages, is also being made into a TV series by Warner Bros. starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.
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“Rock Paper Scissors” — the logline for which is, “Think you know the person you married? Think again…” — centers on a troubled marriage that comes to a head during a Scottish weekend getaway that Mr. and Mrs. Wright randomly win. Things have been wrong with the couple for a long time: self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life, and can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.
Every anniversary, the couple exchanges traditional gifts while Amelia Wright writes her husband a letter that she never lets him read — until now. The couple knows this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.
Mackie told Variety that the book will be reimagined as a six-part series for Netflix, which backs Orchid Pictures. “It’s good, it’s scary and it’s character-driven,” says Mackie of the project. “I’m very excited by that.”
“I secretly hoped that someone wonderful might fall in love with ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ and want to adapt it for television,” said Feeney. “I can’t imagine anyone more wonderful than Suzanne and Hannah at Orchid Pictures, and I’m excited and grateful that my book is in such safe hands. It’s more than a dream come true and I can’t wait to see ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ on Netflix.”
“Rock Paper Scissors” will publish in the U.K. by HarperCollins and in the U.S. by Flatiron Books on August 19 and Sept. 7, respectively. The book rights were represented by Luke Speed of Curtis Brown Group and Josie Freeman of ICM.
Mackie, who set up Orchid Pictures last year with Sky’s Hannah Campbell, is circling three or four other projects. The executive left Sony-backed Left Bank Pictures last year after 12 years, but is staying on as an executive producer on “The Crown,” which is set to start filming in July. Mackie is this year’s recipient of Variety’s Achievement in Intl. TV Award.
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