40 Days Of Dating blog created to experiment with ways of getting a movie deal gets movie deal

By Sean O'Neal | September 18, 2013 | 6:07pm

Aux Features Film

The creators of the “experiment” blog 40 Days Of Dating—in which two successful New York graphic designers “experimented” with dating each other, then posted updates on their courtship to a website that “experimented” with being borderline unreadable, all in an “experiment” to see if willingly turning their lives into a reality show could land them a development deal—have landed a development deal. Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman may have failed to find the lasting love they said they wanted in order to provide a narrative through line to their ploys for attention, but more importantly, they found talent agency CAA, which has now brokered them a deal with Warner Bros. for a movie version of the story of their relationship that was concocted seemingly explicitly in order to sell a movie version.

Like the blog, the movie—from The Vow and Grey Gardens director Michael Sucsy, who knows something about overly complicated relationships and couples who should be forcibly separated—will take on the premise of two well-to-do, attractive, yet unable-to-date-normal-people-quietly-and-with-dignity youngsters in New York who force themselves into a contrived relationship guided by annoyingly relentless over-analysis and rules. These guidelines help them to overcome the fact that they don’t actually like each other romantically, and definitely wouldn’t be doing this if no one were watching or waiting to pay them for it. Unlike the blog, the movie likely won’t stop in the middle while the couple takes meetings with agents to sell the rights to their blog. Like the blog, the girl will probably have quirky Zooey Deschanel bangs.