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DreamWorks Adapting Upcoming Book Series The Guardians

by Ethan Anderton
November 3, 2009

Despite my incessant frustration regarding Hollywood's obsession with adapting established intellectual property and books, somtimes a decent enough idea comes along that makes me forget my woes. Such is the case with Variety's recent announcement of DreamWorks Animation's new project The Guardians (due out in 2012), an adaptation of an upcoming series of books written by author William Joyce (who wrote children's books like Rolie Polie Olie and George Shrinks) which focuses on an Avengers-like assembly of imaginary icons like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny who protect children from the forces of evil.

The film will be adapted from the forthcoming series entitled The Guardians of Childhood which is set to be published in 2011 (a long ways out). The guardians themselves are made-up of childhood imaginary heroes including Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Man in the Moon, Jack Frost and many more. This isn't the first time Joyce's work has been sent to the big screen after another of his books, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, was turned into Disney's second non-Pixar computer animated feature Meet the Robinsons. In addition, children and families are even more familiar with his work as both Rolie Polie Olie and George Shrinks have both been adapted into television series on The Disney Channel and PBS respectively.

Pulitzer Prize winning writer David Lindsay-Abaire (Inkheart, Spider-Man 4) will be writing the screenplay for the feature directorial debut of Peter Ramsey, who was head of story on Monsters vs. Aliens before. While DWA has had their fair share of decent animated flicks (Kung Fu Panda and the first Shrek being my favorites), they've also become unfortunately consistent in taking a brilliant concept and ruining it with poorly crafted characters and plot elements (see all the rest of their films). Still, my hopes are high for The Guardians, and we'll have plenty of time to mull it over since DreamWorks won't be releasing it until 2012.

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