Sean Rubin’s upcoming graphic novel Bolivar must be a winner. It doesn’t even reach stores until May 2013, and already it has a production and distribution deal with a major Hollywood studio.
That would be Warner Bros., which THR reports has picked up the rights to Rubin’s story for Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster to produce through their Weed Road banner. Irish director Kealan O’Rourke already has been tapped to helm the adaptation, which will be an animated retelling of Rubin’s modern-day fairy tale.
The lead character in Bolivar is actually named Sybil, a young girl whose family moves to New York City, only to discover that their neighbor is the last living dinosaur on our planet. Named Bolivar, the dino becomes fast friends with Sybil and gradually emerges from the shelter of his apartment to go on grand adventures with the inquisitive little girl.
Though we know little about Rubin’s writing and illustrations at this point, the artwork in the above image calls to mind Where the Wild Things Are, and the story harkens back to any number of fantasy plots where children befriend mythical beasts (the most recent that I can think of being the fantastic How to Train Your Dragon). Hopefully Bolivar follows the path blazed by those types of films.
O’Rourke, meanwhile, comes off of a recent win at last year’s Irish Film and Television Awards, where he picked up a Best Animation Prize for The Boy in the Bubble. While I’m excited to see what he might be able to do with an animated Bolivar, adaptation, I’m equally excited just to read Rubin’s graphic novel, to see if he has a story worth telling.
