Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, is photographed during an interview in New York March 12, 2013.ADREES LATIF/Reuters
Cue the epic eye-roll.
When news broke that Sheryl Sandberg's working woman opus Lean In is getting the Hollywood treatment, Twitter let out a collective groan.
Will "white feminists" flock to theatres, and will Maggie Gyllenhaal star? Will it be on par with the other duds that dramatized self-help books (think He's Just Not That Into You)? Or manifest as a formulaic office romcom? Is there a promising porn parody in it all?
Perhaps most on the money were those wondering about plot. With Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Facebook chief operating officer Sandberg hoped to empower women climbing the corporate ladder. "Oddly, Lean In has almost no narrative structure whatsoever, and rather offers analysis and advice. How that will turn into a riveting movie is beyond me," wrote TechCrunch's Jordan Crook.
The studio has picked veteran TV writer and apparent funny woman Nell Scovell to write the script.
"The film is not a biography of Sandberg; rather, Scovell will hatch a narrative film from the themes contained within the book," explained Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr., who broke the news.
Scovell helped Sandberg write her book and boasts TV writing credits that include The Simpsons and Murphy Brown. She's also the creator of the television series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, a point no shortage of genius wiseacres are bringing up.
Others were optimistic, suggesting that a film treatment may do for Lean In what comedian Tina Fey did for the self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabes with her screenplay for Mean Girls.
Writing at Valleywag, commenter Nitasha Tiku wished for the best: "I hope there's a bag throwing scene like in Devil Wears Prada."
Zosia Bielski