DVDizzy Forum

Posted: **Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:31 pm**

Source: http://www.comingsoon.net

Disney Snaps Up Clive Barker's Abarat
Source: ic Liverpool , Julez Monday, September 6, 2004

In an interview with ic Liverpool, writer Clive Barker revealed that Walt Disney Pictures has snapped up the film rights for his "Abarat" books. Screenwriter John Harrison is adapting.

Despite having been involved in making the movie versions of many of his other books, he is content this time to let the producers have their own way. "I'm pretty much ready to pass the books over to them and let them take them as they will," says Barker.

"The screenwriter is a man called John Harrison, who I respect enormously and who has been very respectful of my desires where the book is concerned and he tells me the script is loyal to the books and I'm delighted that's so."

The stories for "Abarat" are dreamt up as Barker paints, and written down only after the plot has been committed to canvas. In the first novel, Candy Quackenbush is growing up in Chickentown, Minnesota, yearning for more--which she finds, quite unexpectedly, when a man with eight heads appears from nowhere in the middle of the prairie, being chased by something really monstrous. And so begins Candy's epic adventure to the islands of the Abarat.

Barker is currently working on a number of horror movies as well as a big screen version of his first children's book "The Thief of Always." "Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War" will hit book shelves on September 21. Check out the books' official website for more info.

Tell you the truth I never heard of that book before...

Posted: **Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:41 pm**

Neither have I. What I'd really like is a Pendragon series adaptation. In fact, I think I'll protest for one...

Posted: **Tue Sep 07, 2004 7:14 am**

me neither and probablly isn't my type either

Posted: **Tue Sep 07, 2004 7:44 am**

I have have never read these books but I do know that the Abarat series was originally the fantasy book series that Disney wanted to use to go against WB's Harry Potter, New Line's LOTRs and whatever the hell is out there. I'm suprised that they didnt cancel the project since they know that they are likely to gain a more familiar audience with the Narnia series in production.

I doesnt take a genius to find a site where you can learn more, just click here

I just dont like to read and entire series man!

Posted: **Tue Sep 07, 2004 9:10 am**

Yeah, I heard about this over a year ago - I knew that Disney bought the rights to Abarat when the hardcover of the first book came out, in hopes that it would do as well as other fantasies right now. I took a chance and got the book myself after reading the news. It's really not half-bad! It's not the most original fantasy I've ever read - your standard young hero (or heroine, in this case) goes on a mysterious quest where they discover they're the key/messiah/whatever for this other world, and must save it - blah, blah, blah.
Hehe... but spread through the books are Barker's own eerie paintings - his renditions of the characters and locations. They're fun to study, since there's so much detail. ^_^ I think I also like the fact that there are several references to Minnesota in the book, since the heroine came from there originally. Mostly just throwaway sentences about how boring it is, but hey.