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Dan Eckman to Adapt 'The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To'

by Ethan Anderton
August 25, 2011
Source: Collider

If you haven't yet seen Derrick Comedy's hilarious flick Mystery Team, you're missing out on a sorely underrated comedy featuring comedians DC Pierson, Dominic Dierkes and Donald Glover from NBC's "Community." Now the film's director Dan Eckman is working with at least one member of the comedy group again as Collider has learned that the filmmaker will adapt Pierson's coming-of-age novel The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To. Eckman co-write the script with Pierson and Meggie McFadden (who also wrote, produced and starred in Mystery Team) and they're shopping it to studios now.

Unlike Mystery Team, the film is actually a charming coming-of-age tale that also has flares of sci-fi and fantasy. Here's the official synopsis of the book:

A wildly original and hilarious debut novel about the typical high school experience: the homework, the awkwardness, and the mutant creatures from another galaxy.

When Darren Bennett meets Eric Lederer, there’s an instant connection. They share a love of drawing, the bottom rung on the cruel high school social ladder and a pathological fear of girls.  Then Eric reveals a secret: He doesn’t sleep. Ever.  When word leaks out about Eric’s condition, he and Darren find themselves on the run. Is it the government trying to tap into Eric’s mind, or something far darker?  It could be that not sleeping is only part of what Eric’s capable of, and the truth is both better and worse than they could ever imagine.

It truly sounds like a charming and original story that would be awesome to see on the big screen. I haven't yet read the book, but I've heard nothing but good things about Pierson's great writing. Here's hoping that some studio out there loved Mystery Team as much as I do, and trusts Eckman as a filmmaker to properly deliver this story. If a studio doesn't pick it up, I'm willing to bet the film could get off the ground as indie, but that depends on how effects intensive the sci-fi and fantasy elements are in the script. Stay tuned!

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