Everything ‘Now is Good’ with Fanning On-Board, Watts in Talks

I’m already seeing a film trend for 2011 – films dealing with disease in young people and their unique reaction in facing death. If production begins before the year’s end, we could potentially add Ol Parker’s Now Is Good to the mix.

Production Weekly reports that Dakota Fanning would be taking the lead role and Naomi Watts would grab the role of the estranged mother in the book to film adaptation of Jenny Downham’s debut novel “Before I Die“. The book was optioned back in 2007.

Tessa (Fanning) has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of ‘normal’ life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother (Watts), her best friend, and her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallised in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time finally runs out.

Parker is the writer-director behind 2005’s Imagine Me & You. Watts is currently filming Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible and while Fanning would be prepping for the two “Breaking Dawn” films.