Charlize Theron has optioned the novel Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan through her Denver & Delilah production company, with Dakota Fanning attached to star.

The 2012 book chronicles the harrowing journey of the author, a 24-year-old woman who just started a career as a reporter for the New York Post and was six months into her first serious relationship. Out of nowhere, she became psychotic and violent, which lead to a month-long stay in the hospital that she doesn't remember, where doctors were baffled by her mysterious condition and ready to commit her to a psychiatric clinic. When Dr. Souhel Najjar was brought on to examine her, he asked her to draw one simple sketch which helped doctors diagnose her with a new auto-immune disease which caused her body to attack her brain, an illness now thought to be the cause of "demonic possessions" throughout history.

Beth Kono and A.J. Dix will produce alongside Charlize Theron, although no writer or director have been set at this time.

Dakota Fanning most recently starred in The Motel Life and she will next be seen in Night Moves.