'Whip It' Writer Shauna Cross To Pen 'What to Expect When You're Expecting'

by Edward Davis
October 26, 2010 11:23 AM
1 Comment

Also Working On The Strippers Screenplay, 'Live Nude Girls'

Turning "What to Expect When You're Expecting" — America's "pregnancy bible" — into a feature film you say? That's Lionsgate's plan. They've hired Shauna Cross, the writer of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, "Whip It!," to adapt the best-selling help/guide book by Heidi Murkoff.

According to Deadline, they're going to use that blueprint for a romantic comedy in the ensemble, intertwining stories vein of "Love Actually." The book has sold over 16 million copies so there's obviously going to be a huge audience for this one. The plan is to find a director and start shooting next spring. Given the 32-year-old writer's agenda of writing pro-femme empowering scripts (like her next one, see below), we've got to assume this is going to be either a paycheck gig, someone is eventually going to be rewriting this or Cross will actually inject some bite into what sounds like it could be a fairly cloying and banal rom-com along the lines of "Life As We Know It." Let's hope for the latter, but "Love Actually" is never a blueprint anyone should follow. Even your mom deserves a better movie than that, whether she knows it yet or not.

According to a recent Variety piece in which the writer was named one of the 2010 "screenwriters to watch," Cross is apparently also working on a screenplay called, "Live Nude Girls,"which is evidently a true story about a group of exotic dancers in San Francisco who formed a union to improve their work environment in the early '90s.

More: Films, Whip It, Shauna Cross

1 Comment

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Danielle | October 27, 2010 7:06 AMReply

Having chatted with Shauna in the past, I think her main objective is to provide an alternative to the standard female driven / romantic comedy. Not to just dismiss what women experience, but make it more interesting and real.

I am excited about what she brings to the fold.