Today’s Variety:

Cort, Ribon find out ‘Why Girls Are Weird’
 
Project focuses on girl who leads rich Internet fantasy life
 
By DAVE MCNARY

Robert Cort Prods. has optioned Pamela Ribon’s novel “Why Girls Are Weird” to develop as a romantic comedy, with Ribon penning the screenplay.

Scarlett Lacey, Cort exec VP of production, brought the project — about a girl whose rich Internet fantasy life threatens to take over reality — to the Par-based shingle.

“As girls, we’re told we can do anything and be anyone when we grow up,” Lacey said. “But what happens when life doesn’t live up to those grand expectations? Pam and I want to create a character-driven romantic comedy that tries to answer that very question, examining a young woman’s struggle to manifest her fantasies in real life.”

Ribon wrote the stage play “Call Us Crazy: The Anne Heche Monologues,” based on Heche’s 2001 autobio “Call Me Crazy.” Her script “It Skips a Generation” was recently optioned by Brent Armitage at New Shoes Prods. She’s repped by Gersh and Kim Witherspoon at Witherspoon Associates.

Lacey was associate producer on “Save the Last Dance” and exec producer on the upcoming “Against the Ropes.”

In July, Par announced it had re-signed Cort to a three-year first-look producing deal, while Cort announced his shingle had closed a partnership with Grant Johnson and Taylor Reinhart of Open Water Entertainment to provide equity for script acquisition and development.

Here’s the announcement on Done Deal:

Title:       Why Girls Are Weird
Log line: A girl’s rich Internet fantasy life threatens to take over her reality.
Writer:    Pamela Ribon
Agent:     Gersh Agency and Kim Witherspoon at Witherspoon Associates
Buyer:     Robert Cort Productions
Price:       n/a
Genre:     Romantic-Comedy
Logged:   12/9/03
More:      Ribon will adapt from her novel.