Josh Schwartz, creator of The O.C., and the CW’s golden child (he currently has four series running or about to premiere on the network: Gossip Girl, Hart of Dixie, the Carrie Diaries and Cult) is teaming up with Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) for yet another hour-long CW teen drama, Copeland Prep. Ellis is said to be writing the script and acting as executive producer alongside Fake Empire’s Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.  Hardwicke will act as an executive consultant on the project (look at her IMDB page and you’ll see why.  Essentially, if the CW made movies …).  For what Copeland Prep is all about, hit the jump.

Paramount was involved in two property acquisitions with high-profile producers today:

• Paramount teamed with J.J. Abrams‘ Bad Robot to option the nazi hunter spec script Wunderkind, written by Patrick Aison.
• The studio acquired the screen rights to Libba Bray‘s upcoming novel The Diviners.  Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage will produce through their Fake Empire banner.

Hit the jump for details on both projects.

Paramount Pictures has picked up the feature rights to two Tana French novels for adaptation. In the Woods, French’s 2008 debut novel, is part police procedural and part psychological thriller and charts the investigation into the murder of a 12-year-old girl in Dublin, Ireland. The sequel, The Likeness, features the same detective, Cassie Maddox, investigating the death of a young woman who is a dead ringer for Cassie herself, allowing the detective to assume the woman’s identity as a grad student at Trinity College.

The Likeness was acquired for adaptation by Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl). She will produce with Fake Empire partner Josh Schwartz. As reported by Deadline, the duo purchased the book rights through their discretionary fund at Paramount. Fake Empire has set up five projects thus far, with its first film Fun Size to be released late next year.  Hit the jump for synopses for both books.

As a team, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are best known as the creative minds behind Gossip Girl and The O.C. In case you are particularly averse to teen soaps, you should probably identify Schwartz as the creator of the immensely male-friendly spy dramedy Chuck.  Once you factor in that How to Train Your Dragon producer Roy Lee is also on board, there is something for everyone within the news that the Schwartz/Savage banner Fake Empire has acquired the screen rights to Joe Schreiber’s upcoming young-adult novel Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick.  The tone has been likened to a cross between John Hughes and Grosse Pointe Blank; hit the jump for a synopsis.