"Awww, wook at da widdle kitty!," as Meryl Streep probably said when considering the script for Dewey. But whether she used baby talk or not, she has signed on to star in a story about a small-town cat who became a town mascot.
Based on the true-life story chronicled in Vicki Myron's book 'Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World', this is the story of a kitten abandoned in the after-hours return box of a public library in a depressed small town, and raised and loved by the librarian (Myron herself) and the townspeople. The cat - full name Dewey Readmore Books - became so famous that its obituary ran in over 200 papers worldwide when it died 19 years later. Dewey, fact-fans, is of course the name of the inventor of the library categorisation system known as the Dewey Decimal System, so that's an in-joke for librarians everywhere.
Pamela Gray is adapting the script for the film, having previously worked with Streep on Music of the Heart way back in 1999, but there's no director or other cast announced yet. Still, on past form expect to see a nod to this at next year's Oscars. Or, given that Mamma Mia! was the box office behemoth of the year, this could outgross Titanic. Only probably not.