Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Count Karlstein

1/29/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that Henry Selick, writer-producer-director of the upcoming 3-D stop-motion-animated feature Coraline, said he's mulling several movies as his next project, including Paranorman and a big-screen version of Philip Pullman's children's book Count Karlstein. Selick said, “Paranorman is something that I am not going to direct. But I will be the creative producer on it. My head story artist is a young guy named Chris Butler. It's his own original story and something I believe in. It's kind of a funny zombie tale [about a teenage boy leading his town's fight against an influx of the undead]. I'm helping him put together the team and looking for partners with our studio. So my first effort is going to be to help him put the team together. Paranorman is moving quite well. There's a second draft of that screenplay that's just about finished. I have hopes for that. There are some characters designs, and we're talking about talent. So that's really starting to heat up.”  About Count Karlstein: “That's on the back burner. It's a Philip Pullman kids' book from before The Golden Compass and His Dark Materials. A friend of mine and I, we basically cooked up a story for it a few years ago, and now I've been able to option it. Count Karlstein, it's sort of a re-imagining of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. What I love about it is that the hero is an incredible liar. And instead of being the boy who cried wolf and being punished for that, it turns out it's a great gift. And it's the thing that is her weapon against evil. So that's something where I already have worked out a film story, but I haven't written the screenplay yet.”

AlienAlmanac.com 2009