It’s been a long path for the adaption of Dark Horse’s Emily the Strange, which once had Chloë Grace Moretz (Amityville Horror, Dark Shadows, Let Me In, Kick-Ass) attached to star as the title character. Dark Horse Entertainment has been developing the character as a movie project since 2008, setting it up at Universal in 2010. It’s once again gone into turnaround, which is leading it to one of the best places it can – Amazon Studios.
The intellectual property, a punky goth girl and her assorted cats created by skateboarder Rob Reger, is in the process of being set up to be adapted as a feature film at Amazon Studios, THR writes. There’s a big difference, though: Universal’s take was to have been live-action, but the Amazon Studios version will be in the form of an animated movie that would keep the authenticity and edge of the property.
The character was created in the early 1990s by Reger, a skateboarder who was designing assorted stickers, T-shirts and skateboards. That one design took on a life of its own, and a multimillion-dollar worldwide business with toeholds in fashion, books and comics, toys, school supplies and accessories took off.
Dark Horse Entertainment is negotiating the deal that once set will see the company’s Mike Richardson acting as producer. Reger also will be a producer, as will Dark Horse’s Keith Goldberg.