Source: Variety
Screen Gems recently won a spec auction for Michael Cunningham’s scary genre thriller. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours said he’s always been a huge genre fan, and would argue the finer points of the Hostel series with producer Douglas Wick. “While I was writing about Virginia Wolff, my mind was never far removed from the idea of girls in bikinis being hacked up by guys wearing hockey masks, and I vowed that if I ever had a good idea, I would write one of these scary movies,” Cunningham told Daily Variety.
Beautiful Girl concerns a shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes. She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher’s obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her.
“We’ve become such genre paisans, and when I showed the script to Doug, he showed it to Clint [Culpepper], and it was instant love,” Cunningham said. “This summer, I will finish a novel where nobody gets anything gouged out of them, but my plan is to then write another idea I have for an actual monster movie. As it turns out, we sometimes find we can do more than one thing in our lives.”
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