After surprising lots of people with both the quality and success of **Gnomeo & Juliet **last year, Elton John and David Furnish’s Rocket Pictures company has been buying up other properties and ideas, looking for more possible projects. The latest acquisition? Michael Buckley’s bestselling N.E.R.D.S. book series.
Buckley’s stories focus on your stereotypical group of young, unpopular school geeks. But they have a secret – they also run a spy network under their teachers’ noses and battle the Hyena, a former junior beauty pageant contestant-turned-assassin, who is just one of a number of super villains they encounter. The kid agents are equipped with plenty of gadgetry and naturally boast charming stories of learning to get along in the world. Because, you know, encouraging kids to be cold-hearted killers would just be wrong.
“N.E.R.D.S. is an action-filled comedic property with a great inclusive message at its heart,” Rocket Pictures executives Steve Hamilton Shaw says in a statement picked up by Deadline. “We think it has huge potential as a dynamic and modern family movie.”
Buckley has already written three books, and has another set to come out in the autumn. But he’ll also be spending his time in front of scriptwriting software, as the Rocket Pictures team want him to at least crank out the first draft of the screenplay for the film adaptation.