Sad Story Turned into Funny Story for Fleck

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (Half Nelson, Sugar) are moving into the bigger leagues, striking a deal with Focus Features to produce a project that they originally had set up with Paramount Pictures. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the indie distributor will finance, produce and distribute the pic the 8 million dollar pic with shooting beginning sometime this fall for a probably Fall 2010 release. Misher Films is still on board to produce, and now Wayfare Entertainment will also finance and produce; Ben Browning will produce on behalf of the New York-based shingle, and Michael Maher and Peter Rawlinson are exec producing.

Based on Ned Vizzini’s young-adult novel (with whom we featured in an article here), It’s Kind of a Funny Story is described as a young-adult One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and centers on a clinically depressed 15-year-old who checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward where he gains a new lease on life. When we asked what facets the book that he thought would translate well on screen, Vizzini responded “that the cast of people in a mental hospital who will be great onscreen—different faces, different personalities.”

Who do you think should be cast as the young lead (a.k.a R.P. McMurphy)?