Lucinda Riley's Book Series THE SEVEN SISTERS Heads to Television

Raffaella de Laurentiis announced today that she has optioned international bestselling author Lucinda Riley's THE SEVEN SISTERS book series to be adapted for television.

De Laurentiis' company, Raffaella Productions, will produce. Written by Riley, THE SEVEN SISTERS is the first of a unique seven book series loosely based on the mythology of the star constellation known as the Pleiades (a.k.a the Seven Sisters). Intrigued by the mythology behind the stars, Riley decided to bring the sisters into the modern world.

"THE SEVEN SISTERSstory begins on the shores of Lake Geneva where six of the sisters gather in their childhood home after the death of their adoptive father and discover tantalizing clues about their true heritage," says Riley. "We follow each sister on their journeys across the world to find their roots, but the overarching mystery is that of Pa Salt, the sisters' adoptive father. Who was he? And where is the Seventh sister?" Through a story that unfolds in locations around the world, both in the past and present, the book series attains a GAME OF THRONES level of scale and expansive cast of characters, the emphasis firmly on complex family relationships and the redemptive power of love."

Currently in post-production on What Happened to Monday?, the Tommy Wirkola directed sci-fi action thriller starring Noomi Rapace, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe and Robert Wagner, which also features a story of seven sisters, de Laurentiis saw Riley's THE SEVEN SISTERSin a book store right at the start of production.

"While Riley's story line is completely different from What Happened to Monday?, the book's title and the seven sisters connection compelled me to read it," says de Laurentiis. "Though What Happened to Monday? deals with seven sisters in quite a different time and setting, the coincidence was just too much to resist. I immediately fell in love with Lucinda's story." Riley is the New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid House, The Girl on the Cliff, The Lavender Garden and The Midnight Rose. Her books have sold more than eight million copies in thirty-nine languages. The Storm Sister and The Shadow Sister (out in November) are the second and third books of the series. Riley has just completed research on The Pearl Sister, the series' fourth book, which will take one of the sisters to both Thailand and the Outback of Australia, the very heart of the Seven Sisters myth.

The daughter of legendary filmmaker Dino de Laurentiis, Raffaella de Laurentiis has produced films across the globe. Since her first film, Beyond The Reef, where she had to oversee the building of a hotel in Tahiti before the film could be produced, de Laurentiis has risen to the challenge of working in exotic locales with emerging film communities. From China to Africa, from Mexico to Eastern Europe, de Laurentiis' films include: CONAN The Barbarian and its sequel CONAN The Destroyer (launching the acting career of Arnold Schwarzenegger), David Lynch's Dune, Tai-Pan (the first American film to be made in China), The Last Legion, and The FORBIDDEN Kingdom (which brought together legendary martial artists Jackie Chan and Jet Li for the first time).

In her capacity as studio executive, De Laurentiis supervised numerous films such as Weeds, Crimes Of The Heart and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Two of her films, Dragonheart and Prancer, have become multiple-sequel franchises, the latest of which, Dragonheart 4, directed by Patrik Syverson, is in post-production. What Happened to Monday?, the Vendome Pictures and Raffaella Productions sci-fi thriller fully financed by SND, is slated for release in 2017. Television producing credits include the critically acclaimed 2001 NBC miniseries Uprising and the action-packed Vanishing Son series. Among her executive producer credits are Ron Howard's Backdraft, and the groundbreaking V.F.X. film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Projects in development include Peter Webber's Medusa, and the adaptation of William Sutcliffe's young Englishman-in-India's coming of age novel, Are You Experienced?

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