Tim Burton, beloved director of such dark and brilliant films as Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd, and many more cult classics, is well known and noted for his unique oddness of vision that he brings to all his films.
So the news that he’s in early talks to come on board a novel entitled, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Curious Children, sounds like a match made in heaven.
Deadline report that after 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment picked Ransom Riggs’ novel’s rights up last year, Burton is in talks with them to develop the project, with an eye to potentially direct it, and it will also be Burton tasked with finding the film’s writer.
The original novel focuses on Jacob,
“a 16-year-old whose childhood was filled with stories his grandfather told him about an orphanage for unusual children. Among the residents: a girl who could hold fire in her hands, another whose feet never touched the ground, and twins who communicated without speaking. When his beloved grandfather dies unexpectedly but leaves a message behind for his grandson, the teen heads off to his grandfather’s home on an isolated island off Wales. There he discovers the abandoned remains of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It is in great disrepair and as Jacob explores its bedrooms and hallways, he can see the children were more than peculiar, they might have been there because they were dangerous. And he can’t shake the feeling they are still lurking around.”
Just reading that synopsis conjures up Burton-esque images in your mind, which is why it seems so apt that he’s in talks to develop the project, and I’m hoping that talks will go well. Whether Burton chooses to direct or not, it will be interesting to see who is cast as the young Jacob in such an eerie and mysterious tale. Though I’ve not read the novel, if Burton were to direct it, I hope that there’ll be a part in there for long-time friend and collaborator Johnny Depp, simply because they work so well together.
The pair have teamed up once more for Burton’s next film, Dark Shadows, which is due out in the UK on 11th May next year, a date to set down in your mental film release calendars, and Burton will be following that up with his stop-motion animated film, Frankenweenie, set to be released towards the end of next year. After that, his schedule is looking pretty light, so there could well be a place in it for Miss Peregrine’s Home For Curious Children. Only time will tell, and you can be sure we’ll bring you the news when it comes in.
