Movie News: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE

Universal Pictures

• Stuart Beattie will adapt the screenplay to the celebrated young adult fantasy novel, “Daughter of Smoke & Bone,” written by New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award Finalist Laini Taylor.  The highly sought after property was acquired by Universal Pictures in December 2011. 

• Beattie previously wrote the screenplay for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra for Paramount and Collateral for DreamWorks.  Beattie wrote and directed the Australian hit feature Tomorrow When The War Began and is currently awaiting release on I, Frankenstein, which he also wrote and directed.

• “I’m thrilled to have Stuart Beattie adapting ‘Daughter of Smoke & Bone’; it’s been fantastic to delve into the world of the book with a screenwriter of such insight and experience,” said Taylor. “Between Stuart, Joe Roth, and Universal Pictures, we’ve got a team with massive epic flair, and I can’t wait to see what unfolds as we move toward bringing Karou, Akiva, Brimstone, and the world of ‘Daughter of Smoke & Bone’ to the screen.”

• Joe Roth will produce alongside executive producer Palek Patel.  Roth produced the epic action-adventure, Snow White and the Huntsman for Universal which was one of Universal’s highest grossing films of 2012.  Roth’s Oz: The Great and Powerful starring James Franco and Mila Kunis was the number one film in North America last weekend, and Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie will be released in the summer of 2014.

About Daughter of Smoke & Bone (my review)

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.  In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.   And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.   Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.  When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

I don't know that I'd say I was thrilled to have Stuart Beattie adapting. It's just that his past movies haven't been any thing amazing. Pirates of the Caribbean,  G.I. Joe? Meh. This movie has to be AMAZING. I guess we shall see how things turn out...