Adam Shankman Set To Direct Kate Beckinsale In ‘The Chocolate Money’ – Berlin

Adam Shankman has been set to direct Kate Beckinsale in an adaptation of mother-daughter drama The Chocolate Money . based on Ashley Prentice Norton’s popular novel. Cornerstone Films is handling international sales and will launch the title to buyers next month at the European Film Market in Berlin. UTA is repping domestic, and the pic is scheduled to go into production in the spring in New York.

Set in 1980s New York, the story follows the relationship between Babs Ballentyne, an impossibly rich chocolate heiress, and her precocious young daughter Bettina. Beckinsale plays Babs who is beautiful, whip-smart and lives a rock-star lifestyle. Her daughter Bettina, who is dazzled by her mother, constantly craves her attention. With her blurred view of reality, she fantasizes about normal family life and develops a crush on her mother’s married lover, Mack.

Some years later, Bettina enrolls in boarding school where she goes on a self-destructive spree, partying and behaving in ways which she thinks will catch her mother’s attention. When Mack’s teenage son becomes part of her new circle of friends and her mother unexpectedly turns up on campus, she wonders if she will be ever be able forge her own identity or simply doomed as her mother’s daughter forever.

Beckinsale and Emma Forrest co-write the script with Beckinsale producing along with Mar-Key Pictures’ President Leslie Urdang, Miranda de Pencier and Kelly E. Ashton.

Shankman’s director credits include Hairspray,A Walk To Remember and The Pacifier and is also the director behind Disney’s upcoming sequel Disenchanted with Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey and James Marsden.

Shankman and Beckinsale are repped by UTA.

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