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Universal has optioned film rights to Uncanny Valley, the upcoming memoir from Anna Wiener that chronicles her time transitioning from a publishing career to a new job in the tech world. Studio-based Oscar producer Michael De Luca and Elizabeth Banks & Max Handelman
will produce. Weiner will serve as an executive producer.
The book was first an essay published last year in n+1 magazine. Farrar, Straus and Giroux has set a tentative publishing date of 2019.
Silicon Valley has been undergoing its own existential cultural crisis, kicked off last February by Susan Fowler, who wrote a provocative Medium post that accused Uber of fostering a toxic culture of sexism and harassment. Three months later, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned. Other high-profile tech executives — like SoFi’s CEO Mike Cagney and 500 Startups founder David McClure among others — stepped down in the past year amid allegations of sexual harassment.
De Luca is steering the Fifty Shades trilogy for Universal via his Michael De Luca Productions and is amid the second year executive producing the Academy Awards with Jennifer Todd. Banks and Handelman’s Brownstone Productions produces Uni’s Pitch Perfect franchise which just crossed a half-billion dollars in global box office with the third movie in the series hitting theaters December 22.
Variety reported the deal news earlier today.
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