James L. Brooks‘ Gracie Films has made a mid six-figure preemptive deal for Besties, a spec script by Kelly Fremon. Part of the deal is she’s attached to make her directing debut. The script is a John Hughes-style comedy about two high school girls who are best friends until one dates the other’s older brother, who is totally his sister’s nemesis. Brooks was the first person the script got sent to, and he’s expected to mentor Fremon as she makes the jump to director. Gracie made the buy, but the company’s films go through Sony Pictures. Brooks will produce with Julie Ansell.
As a writer, Fremon has one produced feature credit, the 2009 Fox Searchlight comedy Post Grad. She has also written The Good Life, another script for Searchlight, and The Best Mistakes for Level 1. On the small screen, Fremon wrote the pilot Lovehamption for the CW and Alloy Entertainment and she’s working on a pilot script with CBS Television Studios and Samuel L. Jackson’s Uppity TV banner. ICM and Kaplan Perrone made the deal.
