Stone Village To Adapt ‘Under The Wave At Waimea’ By ‘The Mosquito Coast’ Author

Denise Petski
·3 min read

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Scott Steindorff and Dylan Russell’s Stone Village has picked up film and television rights to Paul Theroux’s (The Mosquito Coast) latest novel Under The Wave At Waimea to adapt as a premium television series. The company is currently out to writers.

Per the book’s synopsis, “Set in the lush, gritty underside of an island paradise readers rarely see, Under the Wave at Waimea offers a dramatic, affecting commentary on privilege, mortality, and the lives we choose to remember. The story, set on the the big Island of Hawai’I, is about a big wave surfer named Joe Sharkey, who is past his prime and is losing his “stoke.” Joe learned to surf with with Eddie Aikau and to thrill seek with Hunter Thompson, as he chased the perfect wave around the world. The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still idolize the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere. So when one night, while driving home from a bar after one too many, Joe accidentally kills a stranger near Waimea, this tragedy sends his life out of control. As the repercussions of the accident spiral ever wider, Joe’s veracious girlfriend, Olive, throws herself into uncovering the dead man’s identity and helping Joe find vitality and refuge in the waves again.”

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Under the Wave at Waimea was published in April by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

“I’m delighted to entrust the adaptation of my novel “Under the Wave at Waimea” to those farsighted producers Scott and Dylan of Stone Village, who got such magnificent results with Empire Falls, Love on the Time of Cholera and The Human Stain,” said Theroux.

The Mosquito Coast series, based on Theroux’s bestseller, debuted April 30 on Apple TV+, starring the author’s nephew, Justin Theroux.

“Joe Sharkey is one of the best characters I have seen in a book in a long time and when I think about a series set around this big wave surfer in paradise, going through an existential crisis, having to find balance with his past, his relationships, his environment, to right wrongs, I anticipate such an engaging series,” said Stone Village’s Russell. “All the characters in Paul’s book are captivating like Sharkey.”

Adds Steindorff, Managing Partner of Stone Village: “I’ve made a lot of film and tv that were about characters in crisis finding catharsis, and where the location was a character. This was the case in the series “Empire Falls” and even “Las Vegas” to some extent. This was true in films I made like “The Human Stain”, “Love in the Time of Cholera” and “The Lincoln Lawyer”. I’ve lived most of my life next to the ocean and I understand the crisis and cathersis that Paul’s character Sharkey goes through. His point of view is shaped by his life in the water. This will be a love letter to Hawai’i, and we will see it differently than we have in other films and tv.”

Stone Village also recently acquired Andrew Hunter Murray’s bestselling novel The Last Day, Just Watch Me by Jeff Lindsay, Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris and The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. The company also is adapting Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for TV, and acquired The Psychology of Stupidity by Jean Francois Marmion. Stone Village is currently producing the HBO Max TV series Station Eleven, based on Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, with writer/showrunner Patrick Sommerville (Maniac) showrunning, and Jeremy Podeswa (Game of Thrones) and Hiro Murai (Atlanta) producing and directing.

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