Most authors at signing appearances hate the age-old question, “So where do you get your ideas, then?” But it looks like three of the most famous fantasy scribes might just have had an interesting answer.
That’s the theory behind the soon-to-be-published kid’s novel Here, There Be Dragons, which Warners has bought thanks to the efforts of Harry Potter producer David Heyman and Blade overseer David Goyer, who will produce it.
James A Owen’s story finds three strangers- John, Jack and Charles – in London during World War One. Through reasons to complicated to be explained here (read: we don’t have that information) they’re gifted the Imaginarium Geographica, a big fancy atlas that doesn’t show the regular continents, but instead charts every mythical land ever to crop up in a fable or story. The three have to travel to the Archipelago Of Dreams and battle dark forces (them again) that threaten two worlds.
Spoilerphobes should avoid this next paragraph, as there’s a twist. The kicker? The three kids are future fantasy legends JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Charles Williams. Bet you didn’t see that coming, eh?
Owen’s book will be launched next week and Heyman and Goyer have assigned the author to write a script.
"It's the ultimate story behind the story," Goyer told The Hollywood Reporter. "Very few people really know what they were like. They had really colourful lives, enough so you could tell straight biographies on them. By doing it this way, you get to have your cake and eat it too."
"The odd thing is, I'm not a fantasy fan,” said Heyman, which is odd coming from the man who helped make Harry Potter into a movie juggernaut. “What drew me was that these characters are appealing and relatable and that the adventure takes place in a wholly conceived world. This is the place where all our stories come from, and the death of imagination equates to bad things happening to our world, which is such a beautiful idea."