‘Spotlight’s Tom McCarthy To Direct & Produce Netflix Series ‘13 Reasons Why’ 

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‘Spotlight’s Tom McCarthy To Direct & Produce Selena Gomez’s Netflix Series ‘13 Reasons Why’ From Paramount TV

helmer Tom McCarthy is set to direct the first two episodes of Selena Gomez’s Netflix series 

, from Anonymous Content and Paramount TV. McCarthy also will executive produce the 13-episode series, based on the 2007 New York Times bestselling YA book by Jay Asher.

Netflix Gives Selena Gomez's ‘13 Reasons Why’ Straight-To-Series Order

Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Brian Yorkey created and wrote the TV series adaptation, which follows a boy named Clay through an emotional night when he receives a shoe box of cassette tapes from his late classmate and crush Hannah, after she recently committed suicide. On the tapes, which are mailed with instructions to pass along from one student to another, Hannah explains to 12 peers how they each played a role in her death, by giving 13 reasons explaining why she took her life.

McCarthy and Gomez, who is currently not attached to act, executive produce alongside Yorkey and Anonymous Content’s Joy Gorman, Michael Sugar and Steve Golin, as well as Mandy Teefey and producer Kristel Laiblin who, along with Gomez, originally found the book and brought it to Anonymous Content for a screen adaptation.

I'm very impressed by Selena Gomez, that Netflix picked up this project. Congrats to her. It's a...

Do you need to know rocket science to become a producer in television?

, brought the project to McCarthy. Yorkey also has ties with McCarthy. The two have been developing a musical adaptation of 

for Broadway, based on McCarthy’s feature about a widower who befriends a Syrian immigrant in post-9/11 New York City.

was nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director

, and Best Original Screenplay (for McCarthy and Singer). The film, which was released in the U.S. by Open Road Films, has been one of this awards season’s top contenders, winning for best original screenplay at the BAFTAs and best ensemble at the SAG Awards and receiving a number of  critics groups’ best picture of the year honors.

McCarthy, who began his career as an actor, segued to filmmaking with his critically acclaimed first feature, 2003’s 

, which won the Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival, BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay and two Independent Spirit Awards.

He is repped by Gersh. Gomez is repped by WME and Lighthouse Management and Media.

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It’s best they held off on reporting this after Oscar voting stopped. Really? A Selena gomez project…what next…

I know this book. I know the author Jay Asher. You can mock it all you want, but the book has been on the bestsellers list since 2007. It hit the NY Times #1 spot in 2011. The response from readers has been overwhelming. Nothing wrong with the source material and it speaks volumes that McCarthy would attach himself to this.

Good for Jay Asher. Good for Tom McCarthy. And,. yes, good for Selena Gomez.

When was the last time you even read a book?

As if Selena is the only one behind this project. There are many interesting people there if you is unable to realize

I’m very impressed by Selena Gomez, that Netflix picked up this project. Congrats to her. It’s a great book, and terrific that Tom McCarthy will be directing first two episodes. My guess is this will be a hit.

I’m so happy for Selena. She really has come a long way from Disney.

Like the huddled masses behind the Iron Curtain, disaffected youth throughout the unfree Muslim world see in Bollywood a

This book has been praised for making young people more aware of how they treat others and the effects of their behavior. Unfortunately, it also imparts the message that you can justify suicide by blaming others…the “13 Reasons” of the title.

Starring in Disney Channel fodder, acting as a child star, and singing breathlessly into microphones on beds during live television performances of orgies… makes you an executive producer of television?

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