Mamet, Disney Team On Frank Tale

Disney has acquired the rights to film a new version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”  The film will be written and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet.

Mamet will produce with Andrew Braunsberg.

Mamet will use the famed diary, and the original play by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, to tell the story of the young Jewish girl who hid with her family from the Nazis in the an attic in Amsterdam. Mamet brings his own original take on the material that could re-frame the story as a young girl’s rite of passage.

Braunsberg is best known for producing “Being There,” and he spent a year gathering the rights from the Anne Frank Estate, and the estates of Hackett and Goodrich. He met with ICM’s John Burnham, who recommended Mamet. Mamet sparked to the opportunity tell the story, and he is already writing the script. 

Hackett and Goodrich also wrote the script for the 1959 George Stevens-directed film, which was nominated for eight Oscars and won three.

Mamet, who last wrote and directed the Chiwetel Ejiofor-starrer “Redbelt,” makes his Broadway debut as director in December when he opens his new play “Race.” A production of Mamet’s play “Oleanna” also moves to New York from L.A. with Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles starring. The Atlantic Theater Co., which Mamet formed with William H. Macy, is bring Mamet’s comic play “Keep Your Pantheon” to Atlantic’s off-Broadway theater. The play is expected to include a new short Mamet work, called “School.”