Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Heck

1/4/12 – Variety reported that Alex Timbers is in final negotiations to make his feature directorial debut with MGM's Heck, based on Random House's bestselling children's book series by Dale E. Basye.  The story follows a boy and his older sister who die in a freak accident and are sent to Heck, a reform school for kids in the afterlife where teachers include Richard Nixon and Lizzie Borden. The duo plan to escape with the help of a map-wielding friend.  First entry in the four-book series is titled "Heck: Where The Bad Kids Go," while followups concerning the different circles of Heck are titled "Rapacia," "Blimpo" and "Fibble." With a fifth book due this spring, MGM may feel that Basye's series has franchise potential.  Karen Rosenfelt is producing, which will be overseen by MGM’s Jonathan Glickman and production VP Cassidy Lange. David Iserson penned the original draft of the script, which will be rewritten by Chris Weitz.

4/29/10 - Juan Jose Campanella is making his feature directing debut with Heck, an adaptation of a children's fantasy novel, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Heck centers on a good boy named Milton Fauster who, with his shoplifting sister, dies in a freak accident and ends up in an unearthly reform school called Heck, where Lizzie Borden teaches home economics and Richard Nixon is the ethics teacher. Milton meets Virgil, a boy who has a map of the Nine Circles of Heck, and the two plot to escape the netherworld and its leader, principal of darkness Bea "Elsa" Bubb.  The Spyglass Entertainment project will adapt the first book of the series, "Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go," written by Dale E. Basye and illustrated by Bob Dob. A second book, "Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck," was published last year, and a third book, "Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck," will be released in May.  Spyglass, which is looking at Heck as a big, effects-driven family adventure, is zeroing on a writer to adapt the book; Campanella will supervise the writing. 

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