Michael B. Jordan is developing Akwaeke Emezi’s novel You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty through his Outlier Society production company. The adaptation will be made for Amazon Studios after the streamer won an auction for the screen rights to the book that the Simon & Schuster imprint Atria will publish in 2022.
Emezi’s upcoming novel is about “a young artist struggling to overcome the loss of an old love, while inviting a new one in.”
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty centers on the protagonist, a beautiful 29-year old Nigerian aspiring artist from Brooklyn. Everything is going well until she loses her husband in a tragic accident. While she grieves through her art, her life begins to turn around when she meets a handsome new man at a party. And is given an introduction to a major curator who wants to launch her career in the art world. But even as romance takes her to a beautiful estate in the Caribbean, she struggles with the challenge of balancing grief with the desire to move forward with her life.
The book’s title comes from a lyric in indie rock band Florence + the Machine’s song, “Hunger,” Emezi revealed on Twitter.
She tweeted:
“I started the romance novel in 2019, which was one of the worst years of my life. And listening to @florencemachine stitched me together when my spirit was pulling itself apart. I am so grateful for their work and the way it carved me down to the bone”
The book was in a bidding war with eight studios and filmmakers vying for its rights. It sold in the high six figures to Amazon and Outlier. It is currently one of the biggest book deals of the year. This will mark as Jordan’s Outlier Society’s first film property acquisition.
Emezi will be executive produce the film. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beaty will be Emezi’s sixth book published in four years across five genres.
Casting and other news have yet to be disclosed at this time.