The Weinstein Company are clearly still smarting after missing out on the chance to make The Lord of the Rings back when they were Miramax. So they’ve snapped up the rights to a new fantasy series – only this one is more, y’know, for kids.
The brothers have bought both publishing rights (in the US) and film rights to the Alex Morningside serie by actress and playwright Adrienne Kress, starting with Alex Morningside and the Ironic Gentleman, wherein our ten year-old heroine, the aforementioned Alex, attempts to rescue her teacher from the clutches of evil pirates, aboard the pirate ship The Ironic Gentleman.
It’s only the first in a planned series about Alex, and given that pirates are so hot right now, expect more books to follow. But will it make a good movie? Well, even with our vast knowledge and understanding of the film medium we, er, don’t know. The first book won’t be published until autumn 2007, and the next, as yet untitled and, indeed, completely unwritten instalment not due until autumn 2008, and when we tried to force our crystal ball to come up with a prediction anyway it exploded. Hope you’re happy now.
The Weinstein Company and Weinstein Books now have a rolling option on all the books, which are expected to branch out into different adventures each time, not all necessarily involving pirates. Some might involve puppies instead, or a nice cup of tea. Well, that’s about as adventurous as we can handle, so that’s what we’re hoping.