Tuesday, June 30, 2026

“Glee” Star Chris Colfer, 22, Sells Hot Film to DeNiro Company, and Publishes First Novel

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You may know Chris Colfer from “Glee.” He’s just turned 22, and he’s threatening to become the next James Franco. The terrific film he wrote and starred in, “Struck by Lightning.” has been sold, I’m told, to Tribeca Films, Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal’s company. This very mordant comedy hits every note just right, in the same vein as “Juno,” “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Napoleon Dynamite.”

The word is that Tribeca will release it in mid -December. Colfer, who has to return to “Glee” soon, is keeping busy sort of 24/7. He’s written a horror film he hopes to shoot next winter in Louisiana. “We were going to shoot it in August,” he told me at People magazine’s swanky party for the BEA Book convention last night at the Top of the Standard.

“Then we realized there’s no snow in Louisiana now.” Whoops! So Colfer will keep busy promoting his new book, “The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell,” the first part of a trilogy for teens, which Little Brown for Young Readers publishes on July 17th.

And yes, he is just 22 (on May 27th). This Colfer kid is a keeper. More projects are coming. And what about “Glee”? He told me the actors don’t know exactly what’s happening until they get their first scripts. But Colfer’s character graduated from high school, so now he and the other grads will head to New York as “Glee” becomes a show within a show.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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