The Hobbit’s Philippa Boyens Set to Write Young Merlin Film For Disney
Disney has hired The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings scribe Philippa Boyens to write a young Merlin film. Ok but will he turn into a squirrel?
Deadline reports:
Disney has set Philippa Boyens to script an adaptation of The Merlin Saga, based on the series of books written by T.A. Barron. Life Of Pi‘s Gil Netter is producing. It’s a coup for the studio to land Boyens, who hasn’t really worked outside her long collaboration with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, with whom she shared the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2002 for the Best Picture winner The Return Of The King. She has teamed with Jackson and Walsh on The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, as well as King Kong and The Lovely Bones.
I’m not familiar with Barron’s series (five main novels worth), which Warner Bros. previously had the rights for, but Deadline also notes, “Warner Bros has already completed production on King Arthur: Knights of the Roundtable, with Guy Ritchie directing, but this sounds like it could be a closer cousin to a series like Harry Potter as a wizard figures out his spell-weaving abilities.”
I, for one, am very excited. I’ve always thought Boyens had a lot of potential and I’m excited to see what she’ll do on her own here.