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Harold and the Purple Crayon CG Adaptation in the Works?

by Alex Billington
February 25, 2010
Source: Pajiba

You ready for this news? Pajiba is reporting that an adaptation of Crockett Johnson's popular children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon is in the works over at Sony Pictures Animation. Producing it is none other than Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak along with Will Smith (by way of his Overbook Entertainment production company). The movie will follow Harold, who uses his magic purple crayon to retreat into his own fantasy world, but soon realizes that he’s been selfish with his crayon and uses it to decide to help his parents and others, and even go on a mission to Mars. How fun does that sound?

The book was originally adapted by screenwriter Michael Tolkin (Deep Impact, Changing Lanes, Nine) but his version is currently being rewritten by more family friendly writer Josh Klausner (Shrek the Third, Date Night, Shrek Forever After). Apparently the project is not a hybrid (thankfully), but supposedly a straight CGI animation feature, which seems like it could work perfectly if they can pull off the character design and world, since it won't just be simple 2D drawings brought to life. Additionally, they say that tone will to be similar to A Neverending Story, which is a bit odd but whatever. There's no director attached yet either.

Harold and the Purple Crayon was first published in 1955 and has led on to a series of more Harold books and other adaptations. I don't know about you guys, but I just think this is a fantastic idea and I'm kind of excited to see what it'll look like animated. It could just be really fun, almost like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs meets Where the Wild Things Are, and if that's how it turns out, then I'm all for it! Thoughts?

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