Twitter’s origin story is being developed as a television series

One of the more common reactions to Nick Bilton’s Hatching Twitter this year was that its plot seemed ripe for movie treatment. It turns out that Hollywood would rather see it as a TV series — Lionsgate said today that it has optioned the rights to Bilton’s non-fiction account of the social network’s earliest days, and that Bilton will write the screenplay himself. Just because a book has been optioned doesn’t necessarily mean it will turn into a series — but given the interest in the story, it seems likely we will at least see a pilot.

Hatching Twitter, which earned strong reviews, details the unlikely story of Twitter’s rise from the ashes of a failed podcasting startup into a global social-media juggernaut. Along the way, its founders betray one another in a struggle for power that leaves its leadership team in constant flux. The book was a bestseller. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Lionsgate is behind several prestigious dramas including Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, and Nashville. More recently it developed Orange is the New Black, a popular series on Netflix.