Movie News Alert!

I'll have the next installment of Taco Hell out later tonight. I've been slow with the posting-by-five schedule. Let's make it easy and just say the posts will go up at SOME point each day.

Anyway, a little news alert popped up for me today about THE DEVIL YOU KNOW movie. Long (very long) time blog readers may remember back in 2007 when my first picture book, THE DEVIL YOU KNOW was optioned by Shawn Levy, the director of the Night at the Museums and Real Steel.

The first screenplay was written by the guys who wrote Chicken Little for Disney. I met one of the writers, Steve Bencich, he was very cool. It was then passed on to Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant (writers of Night at the Museums, also from Reno 911, also also from The State) I met Ben Garant at ComicCon in 2008 and he was very cool too.

I haven't heard much since. Any news I hear comes from me scouring the internet for news--nobody calls me to give me an update. That's fine with me. They renew the option every other year, and each time I get a nice check. It's been six years (and three checks!) So my hope is that they keep renewing it for another six years, then finally make the movie!

Anyway, this is all backstory. Today I came across this news via Collider. Here's the snippet if you don't want to link over:

Levy also spoke a bit about The Devil You Know, which is an adaptation of a children’s book:

“It was a [Thomas] Lennon and [Ben] Garant script, they wrote Night at the Museum, [then] Mike Schur who runs and created Parks and Recreation rewrote it for us. We now have a new draft and I suppose it’s kind of a VFX comedy of theNight at the Museum ilk, I don’t think that would be one for me to direct just because as you can now see, I’m way over-extended. So that’s one where I think I’ll start by trying to cast the female lead because I think it’s a really juicy moment for comedic female stars.”

The book by Nathan Hale tells the story of a family who trade in a pesky devil living in their home for a mysterious tiny lady that offers to take his place. The mysterious woman soon proves to be an even bigger problem than the previous pest, as she unpacks numerous boxes filled with demons of all shapes and sizes and begins to redecorate the house with alternate necessities, like a lake of fire and brimstone in the kitchen.

The female lead that Levy is talking about is presumably the mysterious Ms. Phisto, and the story sounds like it’d translate well into an entertaining family film. I’m encouraged by Schur’s involvement as I think Parks and Rec is one of the best shows currently on TV, so I’m anxious to hear more about the project. Given that Levy is taking himself out of the running as director due to over-extension, it sounds like the film might be fairly close to moving forward sometime soon.

Pretty interesting, huh?