Filmmaker Todd Field, Brian Oliver and Tyler Thompson, co-founders of Cross Creek Pictures, and Patrick Milling Smith and Brian Carmody, co-founders of Smuggler Films, announced today that their companies will team up to produce the film adaptation of Jess Walter’s New York Times Best Seller, “Beautiful Ruins.” Todd Field and Jess Walter are confirmed to write the screenplay, with Field set to direct. Field will produce the film through Standard Film Company with Cross Creek’s Oliver, Thompson, Smuggler Films’ Milling Smith and Carmody, Adam Kassan will oversee production for Cross Creek.

The epic story begins in the spring of 1962 off the Ligurian Sea and centers on three young characters whose orbit around one another is set in motion by an incident involving the international jet-set center, Rome, in the throws of “La Dolce Vita” madness during the shooting of Cleopatra, and continues for decades.

In addition to appearing on the New York Times Best Sellers list, “Beautiful Ruins” was named one of the best books of 2012 by Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, the New York Times, Amazon, Esquire and National Public Radio.