It wasn’t so long ago that young adult fiction wasn’t dominated by sprawling fantasy epics; wasn’t weighed down by trilogies; and didn’t have Hollywood always waiting in the wings watching sales numbers and pinpointing hot properties. These are different days, indeed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Dreamworks-produced adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone now has Christopher Kyle performing screenwriting duties. Kyle is probably best known for writing Oliver Stone’s Alexander and Kathryn Bigelow’s K19: The Widowmaker, but 2000's The Weight of Water is arguably his best story. Before Shadow and Bone though, we’ll get to see Serena, the Bradley Cooper/Jennifer Lawrence period drama he penned for director Susanne Bier, from a novel by Ron Rash.
Shadow and Bone, the first book in a planned trilogy, was picked up back in September by producer David Heyman, whose success with the Harry Potter series proves he knows a thing or two about fantasy films that appeal to all ages. Even though it doesn’t have a director attached just yet, it would probably take a massive disaster to stop this flick from making a mint at the box office.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: the novel, a New York Times Bestseller, follows a young woman, Alina, who lives in a fictionalized Russia in constant danger of a war with flesh-eating monsters. The plot unfolds as she unwittingly becomes the key to saving her world from said flesh-eating peril. There are good guys with powers who belong to a group called The Grisha, and as Alina finds her power she joins them in their fight. I doubt we’ll see the bad guys win this one, or any actual flesh-eating, but one can dream.
