Get Ready for a ‘High-Concept Workplace Comedy’ About the Obama White House Years

Barack Obama hasn’t even been out of the White House for six months and already nostalgia for what used to be has hit its zenith amongst a good portion of the country. Anonymous Content and Universal Pictures are teaming up to adapt a book proposal written by a former White House stenographer, titled From the Corner of the Oval.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the book, which will be written by former stenographer Beck Dorey-Stein, will be published in 2018 after a seven-figure deal with Random House. It’ll follow a young fish-out-of-water woman who stumbles into a position as a White House stenographer, and all the friends and relationships she makes along the way while working on the Oval Office. Making a movie out of a book before the book is written isn’t actually that unheard-of — it happens a lot with upcoming young adult series and books that studios feel are guaranteed to make a splash on the bestseller lists.

Here’s the premise, according to THR:

The book doesn’t promise a revealing look inside the inner workings of the Obama administration, but focuses more on the White House as a workplace and on the relationships between the staffers.

From the Corner of the Oval follows a young woman living in Washington D.C. who is at an all-time career low when, through a twist of fate, she goes from serving cocktails to lobbyists to being hired as a stenographer in the Obama White House. The ultimate fish out of water, she stumbles into an elite world and finds herself navigating a series of misadventures in life and love.

It sounds like a perfectly good idea for a movie, with the added bonus of being kind of topical and a more than a little autobiographical. Anonymous Content’s Michael Sugar, who produced Oscar Best Picture winner Spotlight, will be producing. No word yet on a director, cast, or release date, but if Dorey-Stein’s book is set for a 2018 release, the movie might arrive in theaters around then or soon after. Maybe it’ll be a Devil Wears Prada kind of tale, and they can get Keegan-Michael Key to play his anger-translated version of the former president.