Being that his writing is highly sought after to adapt into great movies, it’s no surprise that Neil Gaiman’s latest book, The Graveyard Book, is already moving forward toward becoming its own cinematic offering.
Gaiman explained that though many Hollywood studios were after the property, he’s going with top dog visual effects people in the U.K to bring his book to life. The studio is called Framestore and they apparently handled the Harvey Dent/Two-Face work in The Dark Knight, so they aren’t new to the big show. But, they are new to making movies on their own.
Gaiman explained why he chose Framestore…
They want to start making films, and start producing their own films, and they read it, and they loved it, and I spoke to them, and they said all the right things, and they seem to listen. So I don’t think it’s going to be transported to a graveyard in Los Angeles where they’ve been burying bathing beauties or anything. I think we’re actual going to stick with where the book is written and film that. And I think part of the idea is that they know they can also do the special effects cheaply.
Some studios wanted to do the film as an animated movie as most of the characters are creatures or dead, but Gaiman explained why he wanted it to be live-action and it sounds like a fairly passionate reason…
I want to see the ghosts for real. I want to be able to touch the graveyard.
As he did with Stardust, Gaiman will also be a producer on this project.
As far as casting goes, Gaiman imagines it will be a parade of well-known British actors, much like the Harry Potter franchise is, alhough he says that the role of Nobody Owens will probably be a nobody — or rather Nobodys. The main character, Nobody Owens — who is raised by the ghostly inhabitants of a graveyard who protect him from the dangers of the real world, namely, the man who murdered his real family — ages from 2 to 16 throughout the book, which means that several mostly likely unknown actors will be playing the role.
Just the sound of all this has me pretty excited about how things could come out in the end for a movie adaptation!
[Source: MTV]
