Recent Hollywood screenwriting deals

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Universal Pictures has picked up film rights to "The Creed of Violence," a Western-cum-gangster novel by Boston Teran.

The book, set in the 1930s West, is a father-and-son redemption story that follows a federal agent who catches a gunrunner and forces the man to lead him to the head mobster in Mexico. What the agent doesn't realize is that the gunrunner is his long-lost son.

After the manuscript went out to publishers, Universal picked up the book pre-emptively in a seven-figure deal.

"Creed" remains in negotiations with book publishers.

Teran, based in New York, also has written "God Is a Bullet" and "River of Night."

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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Sister screenwriters Carley and Chelsea Steiner have sold "Tough Cookies," a family-comedy spec script, to Walden Media.

The story centers on a deadbeat dad ordered by a judge to form a Girl Scout troop with his rebel daughter and her friends. The troop uses its unconventional ways to compete against snobbish rivals at the National Scout Rally.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter