“Seven Wonders”

Author Ben Mezrich’s hometown paper, The Boston Globe, wasn’t kind to his latest adventure novel, Seven Wonders, calling it out as sexist, cliched and lacking in charm. But Mezrich can live with bad reviews--he’s always written stories with Hollywood in mind, and he’s had a lot of success getting his books made into movies.

His book Bringing Down the House, about MIT students trained to count cards, became the movie 21, starring Kevin Spacey.

In 2009 Mezrich published The Accidental Billionaires, which director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin turned into The Social Network.

Mezrich’s ostensibly nonfiction books have been met with allegations that he took far too many liberties with the truth. But he won’t need to worry about that kind of controversy with his new novel, Seven Wonders. The book about an adventuring archaeologist is pure fiction--Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code.

And this time, Mezrich also doesn’t have to wonder if his book will be optioned for a movie because a deal was in place from the start. In fact, Mezrich got the idea for the story from his friend, producer and director Brett Ratner, who set up a possible movie at Fox before Mezrich even started writing.