There's no lack of childhood memories or fears that can be mined by a nostalgia-prone Hollywood-- a whole raft of them show up in this weekend's Super 8 alone. Now one of the most elemental-- the monsters in the closet-- are being trotted back out for the screen. Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, a writing duo with a handful of other large projects in the works at various studios, have been hired by Paramount to adapt Lions, Tigers and Bears, a comic book by Mike Bullock. According to THR it's coming from mega-producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, which means you can probably predict some of these other descriptions: "an effects-heavy live action tentpole and possible franchise."
Di Bonaventura is about to have yet another huge summer with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and recently made plans for a sequel to Salt, his action hit from last summer. Lions, Tigers And Bears would probably be on a slightly smaller scale than those two-- it's about the stuffed animals in a child's room coming to life and protecting him from the monsters who hide in his closet. But really who knows-- the NIght at the Museum movies had gigantic budgets and also gigantic hits, and this summer Sony will be trying something vaguely similar with The Zookeeper. The basic concept is so similar to fears we all had in our childhoods that it could easily tap a universal nerve; it's just up to Epstein, Jacobson and of course di Bonaventura, a producer who's no stranger to hits, to make it actually work.
