Working Title Films is to make a film about the spectacular boom and bust story of on-line fashion store boo.com.
Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's UK production company has optioned the rights to the book boo hoo: a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe. The story offers an eyewitness account of the internet hype of the late 1990's and the rise and fall of what set out to be the ultimate on-line designer store.
Before the web-site was even launched, boo.com was valued at $390 million. Eighteen months later, the internet bubble burst and the company collapsed.
"boo.com is one of the definitive European stories to emerge from the dot.com bubble," said Working Title's literary executive, Amelia Granger, who brought the project into the company. "The story combines all the human drama that goes with the highs and lows of setting up an unprecedented business on a global scale."
The book was published last month by Random House UK and written by Ernst Malmsten, Erik Portanger and Charles Drazin. Lesley Shaw at Gillon Aitken Associates represented the writers in the deal with Working Title.
"I'm really thrilled", said Malmsten, "but it does seem rather surreal."
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