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Julia Louis-Dreyfus to Produce & Star in ‘Tangles’ Based on Alzheimer’s Graphic Novel

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, winner of 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, has teamed up with Monarch Media, Point Grey Pictures, LYLAS Pictures and Giant Ant Films to produce an animated feature adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s graphic novel memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me. Leavitt has penned the adaptation with Trev Renney and Giant Ant Co-Founder Leah Nelson, who is directing.

Louis-Dreyfus will also voice act in the project amidst a star-studded cast including four-time Emmy nominee Abbi Jacobson (Broad City, Disenchantment, The Mitchells vs. The Machines), six-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Kung Fu Panda 4, SuperMansion), Emmy winner Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black, The Handmaid’s Tale, Blade Runner: Black Lotus), Beanie Feldstein (Drive Away Dolls, American Crime Story, Harriet the Spy), five-time Emmy nominee Seth Rogen (The Boys, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Sausage Party), Emmy winner Wanda Sykes (The Upshaws, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Tig N’ Sek), three-time Emmy nominee Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy, The Tiger’s Apprentice), Emmy winner Pamela Adlon (Better Things, Big Mouth, King of the Hill) and two-time Emmy winner Sarah Silverman (Bob’s Burgers, Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph Breaks the Internet).

Producers include Vicky Patel, Steve Barnett and Alan Powell (Monarch Media); Alex McAtee, James Weaver and Madeline Blair (Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Point Grey Pictures); Leah Nelson and Ross Murray (Giant Ant Films); Lauren Miller Rogen, Jen Ray and Sophie Hoegh (LYLAS Pictures); and Louis-Dreyfus. Patel, Rogen and Miller Rogen are all longtime Alzheimer’s activists whose families have been impacted by the disease. Patel was the recipient of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Jerome H. Stone Philanthropy Award for her work fundraising for brain science research; Miller Rogen and husband Rogen founded the nonprofit Hilarity for Charity, which has raised $23 million to help support family caregivers, brain health education and prevention research.

UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance arranged financing for the Tangled film and co-represent global distribution rights for the project.

 

'Tangles' book cover (published by Skyhorse)

About the Book:

In this powerful memoir the the LA Times calls “moving, rigorous, and heartbreaking,” Sarah Leavitt reveals how Alzheimer’s disease transformed her mother, Midge, and her family forever. In spare black-and-white drawings and clear, candid prose, Sarah shares her family’s journey through a harrowing range of emotions — shock, denial, hope, anger, frustration  —all the while learning to cope, and managing to find moments of happiness.

Midge, a Harvard educated intellectual, struggles to comprehend the simplest words; Sarah’s father, Rob, slowly adapts to his new role as full-time caretaker, but still finds time for wordplay and poetry with his wife; Sarah and her sister Hannah argue, laugh, and grieve together as they join forces to help Midge. Tangles confronts the complexity of Alzheimer’s disease, and ultimately releases a knot of memories and dreams to reveal a bond between a mother and a daughter that will never come apart.

Tangles was a finalist for the 2010 Writers’ Trust of Canada Non-fiction Prize (the first graphic narrative to be a finalist in this category); the 2011 BC Book Prizes, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize; the Book Illustration category of the 2011 Alberta Book Publishing Awards; and the 2011 Alberta Readers’ Choice Award. The title was included in the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 books of 2010 and Maisonneuve Magazine’s top 10 for 2010, and winner of the CBC Bookie award for Best Comic or Graphic Novel.

Learn more at sarahleavitt.com.

[Sources: Deadline, Skyhorse]

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