Originally published April 11, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
Deadline is reporting that Imagine Entertainment has won a bidding contest for the rights to J.D. Vance’s New York Times bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, setting Ron Howard to direct an adaptation, as well as producing with Imagine partner Brian Grazer.
Hillbilly Elegy describes Vance’s poor upbringing in the Rust Belt, where he grew up among working-class “hillbillies” and encountered numerous struggles such as drug addiction, and social and economic hardship. He would later enlist in the military, serving in Iraq, before graduating from Ohio State University and Yale Law School and becoming a successful venture capitalist.
“Hillbilly Elegy is a powerful, true coming-of-age memoir by J.D. Vance,” said Erica Huggins of Imagine. “Through the lens of a colorful, chaotic family and with remarkable compassion and self-awareness, J.D. has been able to look back on his own upbringing as a ‘hillbilly’ to illuminate the plight of America’s white working class, speaking directly to the turmoil of our current political climate.”
