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'Charm School', which has sold close to 15 million copies around the world since it was published in 1988, is the story of a KGB plot to send sleeper spies into the United States. It's set at a Soviet compound where American POWs teach agents how to be model Yanks.
Howard Baldwin, CEO of the Philip Anschutz-backed entertainment company, will produce the project with Crusader executive vice president of creative affairs Karen Baldwin.
'Charm School' has been optioned before, most recently by producer Mark Gordon. DeMille turned down several offers for the book by producers who wanted to set the story after the Cold War.
'The author was quite correctly of the mind that to do so would rob the book of its dramatic guts and create a situation where your movie was trying to keep up with the headlines', agent Nicholas Ellison said.
Several of DeMille's books are under option. Columbia is developing 'Plum Island' and 'The Lion's Game', and Paramount is developing 'Up Country', the sequel to 'The General's Daughter', which was filmed and released by the studio in 1999.
Bernhardt also is adapting 'Way of the Peaceful Warrior' for Lions Gate Films.
Also in the hopper at Crusader is 'Swimming Upstream', starring Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis , and 'A Sound of Thunder', starring Edward Burns , Catherine McCormack and Ben Kingsley . Warner Bros. will release 'Thunder' in the U.S.
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