SMASHED Director James Ponsoldt to Write and Direct YA Adaptation PURE

Director James Ponsoldt, who helmed last year’s Sundance hit Smashed with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, has landed a pretty high profile property on the eve of the Sundance debut of his next film.  Ponsoldt’s Smashed follow-up, The Spectacular Now, is one of the more highly anticipated films set to debut at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend, and now Heat Vision reports that he’s been tapped by Fox 2000 to write and direct an adaptation of the YA novel Pure.  Written by author Julianna Baggot, Pure is the first book in a proposed trilogy that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world divided into two societies: the Pures who live healthily under a dome, and the Wretches who are forced to live amongst the ruins. Pure centers on a young Wretch who runs away and teams up with the son of one of the Pure leaders.  Obviously the success of The Hunger Games and Twilight has made studios more eager to adapt Young Adult novels, but the involvement of Ponsoldt with this project gives me hope that character development won't be shafted in favor of action sequences or forced romances.  Hit the jump to read a full synopsis of the book. Here’s a synopsis for Pure: We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost--how the world went from amusement parks, ...