“Pissants” to be adapted for television
Filmmakers Jesse Laurie and Lewis Mulholland have optioned television rights to Pissants by Brandon Jack (Summit Books), via Alice Cottrell on behalf of the Jane Novak Literary Agency.
Laurie, a screenwriter and story consultant, said the team believes the story will make a great show because “Brandon has done a ripper job building a unique world, where Pissants feels like the bible to a great adult sitcom. The characters leap off the page, and some of the stories already feel like tightly packaged episodes. I think Pissants will appeal to any streamer or network looking for a truly Australian comedy that can speak to a global audience, because this book isn’t really about football, it’s about keeping your team together.”
Mulholland, a writer, actor and filmmaker, said, “Pissants takes you inside the inner sanctum of a footy club, and by that I mean you barely spend a moment thinking about football. Instead you hang out with rambunctious characters, doing deranged things, but always doing it together. Which is what attracted us to Brandon’s book – at the heart of it all is friendship.”
Laurie said, “I think a big reason for the diverse readership was the unrestricted access. Brandon gave readers a new way to look at Australian society’s idols, or the people on the outskirts of our idols. Which feels like a pretty interesting group of people, whether you like footy or not – so, there’s a bit of wish fulfilment there alongside peeling back the curtain.”
Laurie and Mulholland met while working on Ghosts Australia, where they “quickly decided that making each other laugh was the top priority and later began collaborating on film and TV projects,” said the team. “Pissants seemed like the perfect fit given Jesse’s background as a Pissant in the AFL (Port Adelaide) and WAFL (Claremont), and Lewis’s background as a Pissant in Melbourne’s social basketball scene.”
The adaptation is already in development, and the team hopes to “take the project out to pitch in the coming months,” said Mulholland.
Summit Books publishing director Jane Palfreyman said, “We keep hearing how young men are the hardest demographic to get to read a book. But those reluctant readers came to Pissants in droves – and many wrote to Brandon saying it was the first book they had ever read all the way through. That is an incredible testament to Brandon’s talent and insight in writing Pissants. It was also read and loved by younger and older women who were compelled and moved by the raw vulnerability of the characters as well as their hilarious exploits.
“Brandon is a singular writer who is not afraid to drag hidden subjects into the light so we can see them for what they are and, in doing so, has created a classic novel that will be read and loved for years. He has shown us what it really means to be a sporting nation and how we need to protect and understand those who entertain us but are often lost in the churn of expectation and exigency. I can’t wait to see this acclaimed bestseller and cult novel on our screens!”
The Pissants novel is described by the publisher as “a brutally hilarious, unhinged and at times surprisingly moving insider’s glimpse into one anonymous footy club – and what might happen behind the headlines, off the field and out of sight. Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers are the embittered fringe players of an unnamed football club. They speak in a cryptic code of inside jokes and WhatsApp exchanges, chained to each other by their place on the outskirts of the team. They follow rules of their own: Kidnapping a teammate’s dog for a gag. Taking potent painkiller suppositories to get through the living nightmare of a sponsors’ event. Ticking off their Pissants bingo cards to survive the weirdness of meetings with the club psych.”
Author Brandon Jack was a football player for the Sydney Swans for 5 years and previously wrote 28: A Memoir of Football, Addiction, Art, Masculinity and Love (A&U).
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions
