Margot Robbie-Produced 'Fierce Kingdom' Lands Black List Writer (Exclusive)

Cat Vasko will adapt the novel by Gin Phillips.

Cat Vasko has been hired to write the script for the adaptation of Gin Phillips' novel Fierce Kingdom, for Warner Bros., Margot Robbie's LuckyChap Entertainment and producer Denise Di Novi.

The thriller, which LuckyChap will produce along with Di Novi and Di Novi Pictures' Alison Greenspan, is set over three hours and tells of a mother and son who are trapped in a zoo with a gunman on the loose.

Phillips' novel made a splash ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair in September, when it sold for a reported sum of north of $850,000 to Laura Tisdel at Viking. The book option is the first move for LuckyChap — which is comprised of Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr — since it signed a first-look deal with Warners.

Vasko is a rising-star screenwriter. Fierce Kingdom (previously titled Beautiful Things) reunites her with Robbie — Vasko wrote the script for Queen of the Air, the story of trapeze artist Lillian Leitzel that also has Robbie attached to star and will be produced by Andrew Lazar. Vasko is currently wrapping up rewriting Lumberjames for Fox and Boom Studios with Emily Carmichael directing, and she worked in the writers room for Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong. One of her first scripts, Situation Comedy, landed on the 2014 Black List.

Vasko is repped by WME, Grandview and Hansen Jacobson.