If you were going to adapt a fantasy tome for the big screen, you might be tempted to wait until the thing has hit shelves and found an audience. But that's rarely how Hollywood works, preferring to snap up titles with potential when they're still at an embryonic stage. That's the case with Jessica Townsend's Nevermoor, which has The Martian's Drew Goddard attached to write and direct a cinematic version.
20th Century Fox pounced on the rights to Townsend's book, a fantasy novel aimed at the kids' market, last year. The novel, which bears the full title Nevermoor: The Trials Of Morrigan Crow follows the titular Crow, a girl born on an unlucky day who ends up being blamed for all local misfortune. If someone has a heart attack and keels over, it's her fault. A hailstorm? All signs point to Morrigan. And if that wasn't enough, she's fated to die on her 11th birthday.
That is until a man named Jupiter North spirits her away to a magical city called Nevermoor, where she can escape her fate if she wins a series of trials against other kids and join an organisation named the Wundrous (sic) Society. Yes, it feels a little like The Hunger Games blended with a touch of a certain boy wizard, but we can see why that might appeal.
This one will have to wait for Goddard's schedule to clear: he's currently busy preparing to make Bad Times At The El Royale, and has been writing Fox's X-Force film.
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