Manhattan "Mystery" apartment to get movie makeover

By Jay A. Fernandez and Borys Kit

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Paramount Pictures has purchased "Mystery on Fifth Avenue," an article from the New York Times' Home & Garden section, for a feature film that "Lost" co-creator J.J. Abrams will produce.

The Times feature, which ran Thursday and was written by reporter Penelope Green, describes an Upper East Side luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue that the occupants had redesigned to include hidden compartments, messages, puzzles, poems, codes and games for their four preteen kids.

The parents, Steven Klinsky and Maureen Sherry, are Wall Street financial experts and purchased the 4,200-square-foot, 1920s co-op with views of Central Park in 2003 for $8.5 million. Soon after, they hired young architectural designer Eric Clough, who devised an elaborately clever "scavenger hunt" that he built into the apartment. The puzzles involve dozens of historical figures, a fictional book and a soundtrack.

Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have been hired to adapt the story into a film. They both have TV comedy backgrounds -- Forbes wrote on "The Larry Sanders Show" and Wolodarsky on "The Simpsons." They most recently wrote the Rainn Wilson comedy feature "The Rocker," due for release in August from Fox Atomic, and worked on "Monsters vs. Aliens," due for release in March from DreamWorks Animation.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter