One Man And His Monster

Sony has snapped up the rights to the man-and-his-monster project, Practical Demonkeeping, and has roped in Idle Hands scribes Terri Hughes and Ron Milbauer to pen the screenplay. Based on Chris Moore's novel, Demonkeeping relates the tale of Travis O'Hearn - a former seminarian who looks 20 years old but is actually 90 - and Catch, his demon companion. Though grateful that his monster side-kick has given him eternal youth, the demon's palate for humans forces the man to conspire a way to send Catch back to the netherworld from which he came. The movie had been in development for several years at Touchstone Pictures with producer Laurence Mark, who has now brought the project over to Sony. Though several scribes have had a bash at the screenplay (including Wesley Strick, Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa), Sony has turned instead to Hughes and Milbauer to pen the adaptation. Last year, Sony acquired Hughes and Milbauer's comic horror spec Idle Hands, which quickly made its way into production under Rodman Flender's helm and is slated for an April release. The duo also set up another horror project, Thirteen, at Universal.