Movies
Scholastic Sells ‘The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray’
Trademark Films has acquired the film rights from Scholastic to Chris Wooding’s teen fantasy novel The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, reports Screen Daily.
“Set in a Victorian London of the future which is inhabited by ghouls and demons, the story centres around a young witch hunter whose mission is to protect a girl under threat.”
Investor turned producer Ivan Mactaggart, who joined Trademark from financing company BMS as a partner (alongside David Parfitt) in December last year, told Screen that the project “inhabits a world somewhere between ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Underworld.’ There are two beautiful young things at the heart of it, and it has real franchise potential.”
Two-time BAFTA winning filmmaker Joe Wright (Hanna, “Black Mirror“) is set to direct the feature adaptation of post-apocalyptic thriller novel, Juice, Deadline reports today.
Emmy winner Abi Morgan (Shame, “Eric”) will adapt Tim Winton‘s novel for Working Title Films.
In Juice, “A young husband and father is recruited into a top-secret resistance organization, to join the ranks of militia men tasked with targeting the isolated and wealthy culprits responsible for this global catastrophe. When a mission goes wrong, he finds himself on the run, having to fight to the end to survive in this hostile world.”
It’s set in a world ravaged by climate-change disaster.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled that Tim Winton has entrusted us with his extraordinary epic,” Wright told Deadline. “The story is both a thrilling modern family saga and an urgent call to action. I cannot wait for audiences to experience it on the big screen.”
Winton added, “I’m pleased to know a filmmaker of Joe Wright’s calibre has chosen to adapt Juice for the screen. His capacity to portray the turmoil and the turning points of nations and peoples as well as private individuals distinguishes his work as a director and I’m confident that Juice is in good hands.”
Juice was initially published in October 2024 and longlisted for The Climate Fiction Prize 2026.
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