Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel Patience is picked up by Focus Features

Focus Features has acquired the film rights to Academy Award nominee Daniel Clowes’ acclaimed graphic novel Patience, with Mr. Clowes also set to write the screenplay adaptation. Published by Fantagraphics in March 2016, Patience spent 19 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List. Focus will hold worldwide rights to Patience as part of the company’s renewed global initiative.

The story explores the lengths to which one man will go, and the sacrifices he will make, for the love of his life. When his wife Patience is murdered, Jack falls into a deep pit of anger, grief, and guilt. Ten years later, he learns of a time machine that might allow him to fix things. From there, he plunges into a psychedelic journey through Patience’s past and the events that shaped her into the woman he knew and loved.

Mr. Clowes was an Academy Award nominee in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Ghost World, based on his comic, which he scripted with director Terry Zwigoff. Among the author and artist’s other screenplay credits, he has written the adaption of his graphic novel Wilson; directed by Craig Johnson and starring Woody Harrelson and Laura Dern, Wilson will be released in March 2017 by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Mr. Clowes’ other celebrated works include the comics series Eightball; the graphic novel David Boring; and the short story collection Caricature. In 2011, he received the PEN Literary Award for Graphic Literature.

Focus president of production Jim Burke commented, “Daniel’s story is beautifully imagined. As with all of his works, it is vivid and affecting. Patience will be a thrilling, funny, and moving exploration of emotions we’ve all experienced.”