The world‘s fascination with social media and the behind-the-scenes drama of some of the world‘s largest and most successful social networks seems to be growing daily. And now there will be one more project to satisfy the need to know more abut the ins and outs of social media.
“˜Hatching Twitter‘ by New York Times columnist and reporter, Nick Bilton, caused quite a stir even before its release on November 5. We speculated a while back that the book might also be turned into a movie. It seems our speculations were (kind of) right.
American entertainment company, Lionsgate, has acquired the rights to Bilton‘s book and has optioned it for a television series.
“˜Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal‘ might soon hit our small screens in what promises to be a compelling and highly entertaining show.
Kevin Beggs, Chairman of the Lionsgate Television Group also believes that the book-turned-series will make for great television:
“œNick‘s book has all the elements of a great drama with its complex characters, high-stakes power struggles and betrayed friendships“ he said.
Of course Bilton, who brought the book to life, will also be involved in the TV-show making process. Bilton has been assigned to write the screenplay, obviously adapted from his book. He will also serve as a producer of the show.
Lionsgate has also signed on Allison Shearmur as the executive producer. Shearmur is the producer of box office mega-hit, “˜The Hunger Games‘, which, co-incidentally, is also a book-turned-movie franchise. Shearmur‘s experience in this will prove to be very valuable for the Twitter TV-show.
“˜Hatching Twitter‘ was only released just over a month ago and has already become a New York Times bestseller.
As we all know, this is not the first time a non-fiction book about social networking has been transposed for the screen. The Academy Award-nominated film, “˜The Social Network‘, about the start of Facebook, was adapted from Ben Mezrich‘s 2009 book, “˜The Accidental Millionaires‘.
However, although “˜Hatching Twitter‘ is being prepped for the small screen rather than the big one, it will still be as enthralling. Because there is so much material and intricate details in Bilton‘s book, a series would be much better suited than trying to squeeze everything in within two and a half hours.
No date has been set yet on which production will start, but we‘re guessing it should be soon. With the book being a bestseller, we can only imagine what the series will be like. Let‘s hope they don‘t piss off the real-life Twitter execs too much.
