Pulitzer-Winning Playwright To Adapt Children’s Series The Guardians For Dreamworks Animation; Film Gets New Director And Release Date
We’ve known about the Dreamworks Animation adaptation of William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhoodfor some time. The book series, called “a contemporary fairytale based on existing fairytale characters” has a band of unlikely characters joining forces to stop the boogeyman from plunging the world into darkness. Now we know that the film has an award-winning writer, and one who is already familiar with Dreamworks.
Varietyreports that Pulitzer Prize winnerDavid Lindsay-Abairewill adapt the story for the film called simplyThe Guardians. Lindsay-Abaire has already been nominated for a Tony for his work on the book and lyrics forShrek the Musical, so I suppose he’s a good choice to write a film in which Jack Frost, North (aka Santa), Bunnymund (the Easter Bunny), Tooth (the Tooth Fairy), and Sandy (the Sandman) fight the Boogeyman.This isn’t the author’s first brush with bringing classic characters to the screen; he previously scriptedInkheart, in which characters can transform books from story into reality. He also turned in a draft ofSpider-Man 4.
(His Pulitzer came in 2007, for the playRabbit Hole, currently being adapted to film byHedwig and the Angry Inch’s John Cameron Mitchell, with Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart starring. The guy’s work is all over the map!)
Also contributing to the film, based on prior reports, isWatchmenandFantastic Mr. Foxproduction designer Alex McDowell. That’s a name that gets me more interested in the film than any other.
Interestingly, while previous reports peggedJeff Lynchas director, the trade is reporting thatPeter Ramsey, who last directed the recentMonsters vs. AliensTV Halloween spin-off and was head of story on theMonsters vs. Aliensfeature, will now direct. Additionally, while the filmhad been setfor November 2011 it has been pushed back a year, and is now set to bow on June 30, 2025.
