One Day, international best-selling novel by David Nicholls, to be published in trade paper

Film version, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, to begin production next month.

NEW YORK, June 15, 2010 – ONE DAY, the internationally praised novel by David Nicholls that was #1 on both the hardcover and paperback bestseller charts in the U.K., will be published in the U.S. in trade paperback on June 15 by Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House, Inc. As a co-production in their unique partnership, Random House Inc.’s Random House Films division and Focus Features will begin filming the movie version July 12. The U.K.’s Film4 is co-financing. The announcement was made today by Focus CEO James Schamus and Random House Films President Peter Gethers.

Mr. Nicholls has completed adapting his book into the screenplay for One Day, which Focus will release theatrically in the third quarter of 2011. Focus will hold worldwide rights – excluding U.K. free-TV, to be held by Film4 – to the movie version, which stars Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess and is being directed by Lone Scherfig, who most recently helmed the Best Picture Academy Award nominee An Education. Nina Jacobson is producing One Day, and Film4 head Tessa Ross is executive-producing. Focus Senior Vice President, European production Teresa Moneo is supervising the project with Focus director of production Matthew Plouffe for Focus president of production John Lyons and Claudia Herr, Executive Story Editor, is supervising for Mr. Gethers.

The story charts an extraordinary relationship. Emma (to be played by Ms. Hathaway) and Dexter (Mr. Sturgess) meet on the night of their college graduation – July 15, 1988. She is a working-class girl of principle and ambition who dreams of making the world a better place. He is a wealthy charmer who dreams that the world will be his playground. For the next two decades, every July 15 reveals to us how “Em” and “Dex” are faring, as their friendship ebbs and flows with the passing of the years. Through love and loss, heartbreak and success, hopes fulfilled and dreams shattered, they experience the grandeur of life. Somewhere along their journey, these two people realize that what they are searching and hoping for has been there for them all along.

Mr. Schamus said, “Focus has enjoyed tremendous success over the years with great love stories such as this one. David’s tale is a romance for our times, and Lone’s senses of compassion and humor will have audiences laughing and crying with Emma and Dexter.” Mr. Gethers added, “As the next Focus Features and Random House Films movie to go into production, One Day epitomizes the talent-centered partnership between our companies. David’s novel is a worldwide success, and because of the characters he’s created and his superb screenplay adaptation, we’re attracting the best imaginable talent.”

Focus Features and Random House Films last month announced development on the adventure thriller The Tiger, which Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Babel) is adapting from John Vaillant’s upcoming nonfiction book THE TIGER: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, to be published by Knopf on August 24.

In the unique multi-year filmmaking partnership between Random House Films and Focus, the companies develop movies together and co-finance and co-produce a substantial slate of feature films for theatrical release, all based on books published by Random House imprints in North America and internationally. Random House Films and Focus jointly acquire film rights for the books and partner together on script development, director selection, all phases of production, and marketing and publicity. Films co-produced by Focus with Random House Films are jointly owned, with Focus holding worldwide distribution and sales rights.

Focus Features and Focus Features International (www.focusfeatures.com) comprise a singular global company. This worldwide studio makes original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world that deliver global commercial success. The company operates as Focus Features in North America, and as Focus Features International (FFI) in the rest of the world.

Current and upcoming Focus Features releases include the unique nonfiction feature Babies, directed by Thomas Balmès; Anton Corbijn’s suspense thriller The American, starring George Clooney; writer/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story; Academy Award-winning writer/director Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere; Kevin Macdonald’s Roman epic adventure The Eagle of the Ninth, starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland, and Mark Strong; Cary Fukunaga’s romantic drama Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender; Joe Wright’s adventure thriller Hanna, starring Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, and Eric Bana; and Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo.

Vintage & Anchor Books, the paperback imprints of Random House, Inc.’s Knopf Doubleday Group, are the foremost publishers of movie tie-in books in the U.S.; they have published tie-ins with Focus Features for Atonement, Reservation Road, Away We Go, Lust, Caution, and Evening, and will soon publish the tie-in edition of Jane Eyre.

Focus Features and Focus Features International are part of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric and 20% owned by Vivendi.

Random House, Inc. (www.randomhouse.com), the U.S. division of Random House, the world’s largest trade book publisher, is home to many of the world’s foremost and most popular authors of adult and children’s books. Random House has more than 120 publishing imprints in the U.S. and Canada, which publish books in hardcover, trade and mass market paperback, audio, electronic, digital, and other emerging formats. More than fifty Random House authors have been awarded Nobel Prizes and the company’s books have won numerous Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, Newbery honors, and other major literary recognitions.