Movie version of Lean In to bring the excitement of women making smart career choices to big screen

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg became the role model for a new generation of powerful women with Lean In, her memoir/manifesto in which she outlines strategies for achieving success and respect within a male-dominated workplace. For example, not attending board meetings in a tattered wedding dress, softly moaning that now that young Mr. Darnell has spurned you at the altar, you shall never find another. Or instead of completing a PowerPoint presentation as promised, just having a whole mess of babies.

Now these and possibly other, more useful lessons will form the basis of a Lean In movie—one that will not be a biopic, seeing as The Social Network already covered how Mark Zuckerberg can be kind of a dick. Instead, Deadline says Lean In will be “a narrative film from the themes contained within the book,” in the tradition of movies extrapolated from other nonfiction tomes like Mean Girls and What To Expect When You’re Expecting, and the tradition of absolutely everything with a recognizable brand name getting a movie deal.

TV writer Nell Scovell, who helped Sandberg with the book, will handle the script, drawing on her experience with strong female characters on shows like Murphy Brown and, uh, Sabrina The Teenage Witch. And hopefully she already has some sort of plotline in mind, one that can turn the book’s lessons about being efficient and a corporate team player into something, say, Anne Hathaway can wear a sharp pantsuit in.

“Hey man, you see this movie ’bout Leanin’?” Matthew McConaughey is saying to his agent right now.

 
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