Remember Goosebumps, the series of horror books aimed at youths and written by author R.L. Stine? The books were mostly popular in the ’90s but still continue to be made in one form or another to this day.
As it turns out, Columbia Pictures acquired the rights to about 50 of Stine’s works back in 2008 and has been developing a feature adaptation of the books since then. And now they’ve found a writer for the job—it’s being reported that Darren Lemke, who wrote the scripts for Shrek Forever After and the upcoming Bryan Singer fantasy adventure, Jack the Giant Killer, has been brought in to adapt Goosebumps into script form.
When it comes to classic titles, people have a zero-tolerance to remakes and reinventions and anything that may taint the integrity of the original.
When it comes to The Wizard of Oz, however, there seems to be a special type of open-mindedness to prospective future titles. Part of this is because the beloved 1939 Judy Garland film was not the first to be adapted from Frank L. Baum‘s timeless story — not even close — and because it’s such a perfectly fantastical playground, eternally ripe for creative minds to reinterpret and re-visualize according to the cinematic times.
There’s a handful of possible Wizard of Oz films currently in various states of development — most of which will likely never see the light of day — and it’s only a matter of time before a couple of them get that big green light to go into production.
New Line Cinema recently heard a pitch from Darren Lemke that presented a concept for a live-action re-imagining of beloved fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The pitch hit its mark solid and New Line acquired the idea and is moving forward with it. This new vision is expected to be of the action/adventure/fantasy variety and be presented in the same style as movies like The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The original Nutcracker tale was written in 1816 by E.T.A. Hoffmann and centers around a 12-year-old girl named Marie and her 8-year-old brother, Fritz, as they eagerly await the year’s Christmas gift from their clockmaker/inventor father. He presents them with a specially crafted castle with mechanical people moving around it as if always tending to the day’s chores. Marie notices a Nutcracker and asks her father about it, who offers her the responsibility of caring for the doll. Later that night, Marie discovers that there is much more to the Nutcracker as he and many other dolls come to life to do battle with the mice, who are lead by the seven-headed Mouse King.
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press