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Richard LaGravenese Adapting 'Beautiful Creatures' Novel

by Alex Billington
November 30, 2009

Every other week until Deathly Hallows hits theaters we'll probably be hearing about some new potential Harry Potter replacement. Even though there are still two more years until the final Potter movie arrives, studios are starting to setup projects that to fill the "coming-of-age wizard" genre that will be left open once that franchise comes to an end. Variety reports that Warner Brothers has hired Richard LaGravenese, of P.S. I Love You and Freedom Writers, to write and direct an adaptation of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's novel Beautiful Creatures. The book just hit shelves and is about a young witch named Lena Duchannes.

Beautiful Creatures sounds much more like Twilight than it does Harry Potter. In the first book, apathetic high-school student Ethan Wate meets and becomes bewitched by Lena Duchannes, a 16-year-old whose family has moved to the small South Carolina town where he lives. The two must confront a curse that has haunted her family for generations as she comes to grips with her powers. So, lonely guy meets powerful witch girl in small town? Yea, that sounds like Twilight meets Harry Potter for sure. And LaGravenese is more of a romantic director, so expect some charm and whit, not action and suspense in this adaptation.

I'm not planning on reading these books or caring much about this until it starts casting. The are five books in the series, with the first just being released this very week (so it's hard to judge how popular this will eventually be). LaGravenese explains: "I love supernatural stories that have well-drawn mythologies, and I liked that this book has all the basic elements of a classic first love story with a supernatural layer over it." I'm already getting sick just hearing that. “Their first kiss comes after he saves her life, and their first date is part of a bigger adventure that leads to the unraveling of the mysterious curse that haunts her family.”

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