The Black List, the annually published list of the most popular unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, appears to have produced a new success story. Good Kids, the script by newcomer Chris McCoy that was part of the 2011 rankings, is starting to get some legs and has added a couple stars to play two of the movie's the lead roles. Deadline has learned that Nicholas Braun and Jane Levy have signed on for the film and that McCoy is now attached to helm - which will make it his feature directorial debut.
Good Kids is actually one of three scripts that McCoy has landed on The Black List, but as of yet none of them have actually been turned into films (in 2007 he landed a screenplay called Get Back and in 2009 it was one titled Good Looking). There aren't too many plot details available about Good Kids, but it's reported that the story centers on four "overachieving" recent high school graduates living on Cape Cod. Wanting to do something completely different and change their lives up a bit, they decide to spend the summer reinventing themselves while the hordes of tourists come to town. Chris and Paul Weitz and Andrew Miano are producing the new movie through their Depth of Field label and they are currently looking for financing.
McCoy found himself featured in hundreds of headlines last year when he was originally hired to pen the script for Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy. Ultimately, however, writer/director James Gunn was hired to handle the project and worked on his own draft of the movie. Since then he sold his travel dramedy script Year Abroad, and, according to the most recent report, both Get Back and Good Looking are in the works as well. It may not be long before Hollywood gets to know the name Chris McCoy very well.
Following a big 2012 that included movies like The Watch and The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Nicholas Braun has had a pretty quiet 2013 thus far but has some stuff coming. He's completed work on the comedy Get A Job with Bryan Cranston, Anna Kendrick, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and is currently filming the sci-fi/horror comedy The Kitchen Sink. Levy, meanwhile, is best known for her starring role on the ABC series Suburgatory, but made a name for herself on the big screen earlier this year with Evil Dead.
To get an idea of what we can expect from McCoy, watch the trailer below, which is for a short film he co-wrote and co-directed called The Bicycle.
