Lauren Oyler‘s excellent book Fake Accounts will be the latest novel to be getting adapted to TV. Ben Sinclair and Jen Silverman will develop the show.
The former is best known for starring, directing and creating HBO’s High Maintenance, while the latter wrote for 2019 limited series Tales From The City and is currently developing film Sybil Exposed for Annapurna.
Fake Accounts revolves around a young woman on the eve of Donald Trump‘s inauguration, who snoops through her boyfriend’s phone and makes the startling discovery that he’s a popular internet conspiracy theorist.
Shocked, she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a self-congratulatory sojourn to the Women’s March in DC. But uncovering his double life is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world where truths are shaped by online lies.
Although the conspiracy angle is the hook, the best aspects of the book are how it expertly captures our very strange relationship with the internet, how it affects every aspect of our lives, and how so little feels authentic any more because it’s all been commodified into content.
Anonymous Content’s AC Studios will develop the series alongside Julia Garner‘s Alma Margo. Oyler herself will also executive produce. David Levine, Anonymous Content Chief Creative Officer, said in a statement:
“We inhaled Lauren Oyler‘s debut novel and found it chock-full of searing, hilarious, ultimately brilliant observations about the devil’s bargain we’ve all made living our lives online. She has captured the zeitgeist of our recent past in the pages of this book, deploying her unmatched critical eye and talent for putting words around what we’re all feeling but can’t name.”
There’s probably not a better time to adapt Fake Accounts for the screen. Expect plenty of networks and streaming platforms to be interested in a show that will surely capture a lot of familiar feelings for viewers.
#Peace.Love.FakeAccounts
