EXCLUSIVE: Permut Presentations and Grey Eagle Films will produce The War Of The Roses, The Children, an adaptation of the sequel novel by Warren Adler, whose original was the basis for the 1989 film in which director Danny DeVito tapped his Romancing The Stone cohorts Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and pitted them in a divorce battle to the death.
Here, the chandelier-shattering legacy of Barbara and Oliver Rose is passed down to their children, Josh and Evie, in a black comedy that focuses on ugly divorce from the vantage point of kids who fall victim to warring parents. Josh marries Victoria, only to see the marriage fall apart over an incident involving missing Milky Way bars; and Evie is a promiscuous over-eater carrying her own shrapnel. The result is deceit, violence and destruction. Permut will produce with Grey Eagle Films, Jonathan Adler and Stephen Greenwald. Chris Mangano will be exec producers. Grey Eagle Films got the film and TV rights to all of Adler’s novels, and newly monied Permut Presentations is financing development, and is currently seeking a scribe.
Permut said the film “will explore, with comedic irony, the underbelly of a troubled family which, in this new scenario has produced a serial adulterer, a gluttonous gourmand, the protective mother-in law and grandchildren who are deeply impacted by the generational dysfunction.” Permut wrapped Match with Patrick Stewart, Carla Gugino and Matthew Lillard, and the cable telepic The Color Of Rain. He’s in pre-production on I Am Chippendales, which American Beauty and True Blood scribe Alan Ball wrote and will direct. Permut’s also putting together Kinison, based on the life of the manic funnyman, with Josh Gad starring for Borat helmer Larry Charles.