While he's had plenty of success in the animation field, directing such movies as Rio, its sequel and Ferdinand among others for Blue Sky, Carlos Saldanha has been wanting to get into live-action for a while, contributing a segment to portmanteau pic Rio, I Love You. Now, he may finally get his feature-length chance, as he's on to make an adaptation of children's classic The Phantom Tollbooth.
Norton Juster's book was first published in 1961 with illustrations by Jules Pfeiffer. Tollbooth focuses on Milo, an apathetic child who is bored by everything. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through it and discovers the magical Lands Beyond — which is full of intriguing places and dynamic characters, like kidnapped princesses and Rhyme and Reason, and Tock, an oversized watchdog with a clock in his side — and learns that life is much more exciting than he had thought it to be.
The beloved book has sold nearly four million copies since it was published and was turned into an animated/live-action movie in 1970 by Chuck Jones, Abe Levitow and Dave Monahan. Naturally, studios still want another crack, and the new version has been gestating since at least 2010, with writers including Phil Johnston and Michael Vukadinovich taking a crack and regular It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia director Matt Shakman attached until recently, when scheduling issues got in the way.
Now Saldanha is in the director's chair, with a script in hand by Hidden Figures' Ted Melfi, and Sony will be hoping that it finally finds the way to screens.
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