Though it was an inevitability, the end of the Harry Potter franchise has left a void over at Warner Bros. Over the last decade the studio could rely on the boy wizard to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars at the international and domestic box office and now they are on the hunt for the next big thing. According to Variety, they think they might have found it with A Discovery of Witches, which not only has magical characters, but has them doing battle with the other favorite mythical being of the moment: vampires.
Though the rights to Deborah Harkness' novel were purchased last summer, it is only now that David Auburn has been brought on to adapt it into a movie. Auburn's previous work includes the 2005 John Madden film Proof (which was based on a play that he wrote) and 2006's The Lake House. The story centers on a witch who is the direct descendant of "the first woman executed in the Salem Witch trials." After accidentally unlocking a manuscript, she finds herself working to prevent a war from breaking out between witches and vampires. Denise Di Novi and Allison Greenspan are both signed on as producers.
Released just last year, A Discovery of Witches is actually the first book in a planned trilogy, so there is potential for Warner Bros. to turn this into a legitimate franchise. Harkness' novel has done extremely well, debuting at #2 on the New York Times Best Seller list, being named one of the best books of February 2011 by Amazon, and selling in at least 34 countries. If they do it right, this could very well be the perfect stopgap.
