Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment, Netflix to Adapt Freida McFadden Best-Seller ‘Never Lie’ (Exclusive)

21 Laps Entertainment, the production banner founded by Deadpool & Wolverine filmmaker Shawn Levy, and Netflix have teamed up to adapt Never Lie, the best-seller by author Freida McFadden.

Netflix has acquired the rights to the psychological thriller for 21 Laps to develop and produce the adaptation. Levy will produce along with partners Dan Levine and Dan Cohen. The project will fall under the company’s first-look feature deal with the streamer.

Described as being in the tone of Gone Girl, Never Lie follows a newlywed couple on the search for the house of their dreams when they come upon a remote manor that once belonged to a renowned psychiatrist, a woman who vanished four years earlier. Trapped at the estate due to an intense blizzard, the wife happens upon a secret room containing audio tapes of the psychiatrist’s interviews with her patients, discovering one session is with a sociopath who sounds scarily familiar to her.

McFadden is a doctor-turned-author who during the last 10 years became one of the biggest-selling names in publishing. She currently has six books in Amazon’s top 20 chart of best-sellers for the week of July 21. Never Lie spent 11 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list and USA Today’s Best-selling Books Top 150 list, and 23 consecutive weeks on Publisher Weekly’s bestseller list.

Brittney Haas will oversee the adaptation for 21 Laps.

The banner previously adapted the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr for Netflix, which Levy directed. Up next is the Sept. 27 release of Halle Berry’s thriller Never Let Go, via Lionsgate, and Netflix’s murder drama series The Perfect Couple. It is also in production on the fifth season of Stranger Things.

Levy is coming off the record-shattering opening of Deadpool & Wolverine, which grossed over $211 million in its opening weekend. The figure set numerous records, among them the highest R-rated opening of all time and the highest July opening domestically. It also marked highs for stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, and Levy. The tally continued to pour in Monday as the movie earned over $24 million, becoming the best R-rated Monday ever for a movie at the domestic box office.