Paramount Pictures has snapped up the big screen adaptation of Little House on the Prairie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It’s the first tangible sign of progress from the dormant project in quiet some time, given that Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin signed on all the way back in 2014. He’s still attached to direct, though now that the long-gestating movie has found a home at Paramount – Sony had initially set the wheels in motion in 2012 – THR writes that Little House on the Prairie entered something of a creative turnaround when development began to grind to a halt.
Now, Paramount has placed Abi Morgan in charge of script duties, who will look to bring Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic book series to moviegoers at long last.
Here’s the official synopsis of Wilder’s novel, which she loosely based on her own family experience growing up in the American Midwest.
The adventures continue for Laura Ingalls and her family as they leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and set out for Kansas. They travel for many days in their covered wagon until they find the best spot to build their little house on the prairie. Soon they are planting and plowing, hunting wild ducks and turkeys, and gathering grass for their cows. Sometimes pioneer life is hard, but Laura and her folks are always busy and happy in their new little house.
Wilder’s nine-book saga was first printed in 1932, and grew to prominence thanks to a long-running TV series of the same name that aired on NBC from 1974 to 1984. Little House on the Prairie has since remained relevant via an ABC miniseries in 2005 and a musical three years later, but can Paramount’s high-profile revival prove that Wilder’s nuclear family can still attract an audience?