The Young Adult fiction category is proving to be something of a mixed bag for studios. While Twilight and **The Hunger Games **have been huge hits, there are still those, such as the recent Beautiful Creatures, which just don’t seem to strike a chord. That doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone, with news that T****he Rite** director Mikael Hafstrom will direct an adaptation of Tunnels.
Written by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, Tunnels is set beneath the streets of London where two teenage boys discover a previously hidden world and a civilization dwelling there that is in need of a saviour.
Why a saviour, you ask? Because there’s naturally a seething, hideous evil force lurking there, just waiting for the chance to destroy both the world below and our own. If you ask us, it sounds a little bit like any of the recent magical YA books crossed with Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist took the first pass at the script for Relativity Media, but now the company has drafted in Andrew Lobel to work on it. The book series already runs to six entries, with a seventh and final tome, Terminal, due to be published this autumn, so there's a franchise waiting here if the first film makes money. Of course, that’s a big if..
Hafstrom's latest, Arnie/Sly match-up** The Tomb**, arrives on September 27.