Not content with merely working on Tintin, buying back DreamWorks, tinkering with Lincoln and The Chicago Seven and counting the money bags coming in from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steven Spielberg has just bought the rights to upcoming adventure series The 39 Clues for DreamWorks, with an eye to directing.
The series, which will include books (ten are planned), collectable cards and online elements, centres around a mystery which kids around the world will be invited to solve for the chance to win $10,000. The story of the books revolves around the mega-rich Cahill family, who can trace their ancestry back to both Napoleon and Houdini, and whose matriarch, Grace, changes her will on her death bed. She offers each of her descendants the choice of a clue to the "source of the family's powers", which presumably means money. That, or some Da Vinci Code-like secret.
There's said to be enough material in the game for three or four films, should it be a big enough hit, with author Rick Riordan having completed work on the first book and mapped out the ten book arc.
Spielberg is definitely producing the film, and is said to be "eyeing" it as a directing vehicle as well. In any case, expect him to set a screenwriter soon and set the ball rolling on what sounds like an interesting idea.