Amy Adams to Star in and Produce Memoir Adaptation ‘Finding the Mother Tree’
Adams’ Bond Group Entertainment will produce with Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories
Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal have together acquired the rights to the memoir “Finding the Mother Tree” by scientist Suzanne Simard, and Adams will also star in the film adaptation.
Adams’ production company Bond Group Entertainment and Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories will together produce “Finding the Mother Tree,” which was published today. The book is described as a scientific detective story about how Simard explores her own journey as both an ecologist, a former logger and a mother.
Simard is a scientist who discovered how trees communicate through a web of underground fungi. Simard’s work was once ridiculed, but her work has been considered influential not just to science, forever changing the way we look at trees, but also to the creative world, with James Cameron even being inspired by her work in imagining “Avatar” and the film’s Tree of Souls.
In “Finding the Mother Tree,” Simard examines Mother Trees: mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain all the life that surrounds them. While her revolutionary findings were initially dismissed and even ridiculed, they are now firmly supported by research and data. As her journey shows, science is not a realm apart from ordinary life but deeply connected with our humanity.
Producing “Finding the Mother Tree” are Adams and Stacy O’Neil for Bond Group and and Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker for Nine Stories. Noah Stahl will oversee for Nine Stories, and Kate Clifford will oversee for Bond Group Entertainment. No distributor has been set for the film.
“‘Finding the Mother Tree’ is a rare and moving book–part charming memoir, part crash course in forest ecology. And yet, it manages to be about the things that matter most: the ways we care for each other, fail each other and listen to each other. After the last year and a half, its lessons about motherhood, connection and the natural world are more timely than ever, and we are thrilled to partner with Amy, Stacy and their company, and Suzanne Simard to adapt this majestic story to film.”
“Suzanne’s novel has been an inspiration. Creatively, it excited us with a narrative about the awe-invoking power of nature and the compelling parallels in Suzanne’s personal life. It forever transformed our views of the world and the interconnectivity of our environment,” Adams and O’Neil said in a statement. “‘Finding the Mother Tree’ is not only a deeply beautiful memoir about one woman’s impactful life, it’s also a call to action to protect, understand and connect with the natural world. We’re thrilled to partner with Jake & Riva to bring Suzanne’s important life story to screen and expand the reach of her groundbreaking work.”
“The forest has taught me that our relationships–with each other and with the trees, plants, and animals around us–are what make our lives beautiful, strong, and healthy. I’m thrilled to be partnering with the visionaries at Nine Stories and the Bond Group to bring this story to the screen and share it with people everywhere,” Simard said in a statement.
Adams will next be seen in “Woman in the Window,” and she’ll soon be filming “Disenchanted,” the sequel to “Enchanted,” for Disney+.
Adams and Bond Group are represented by WME, Linden Entertainment, Narrative and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern. Nine Stories is represented by WME and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman. Simard is represented by Idea Architects and WME.
Read original story Amy Adams to Star in and Produce Memoir Adaptation ‘Finding the Mother Tree’ At TheWrap
