Spielberg Snaps Up Rights to Children of the Lamp Series
Posted on June 27, 2007
Author P.B. Kerr is heading for Hollywood: Steven Spielberg just bought the film rights to his childrens' fantasy series, Children of the Lamp.
The director's production company Dreamworks is to make a big screen adaptation of Children of the Lamp, which was penned by Philip Kerr for his son William to try and wean the ten-year-old off his PlayStation.Kerr was a well-known adult thriller writer when he turned to writing for teens. We absolutely love the Children of the Lamp books and have devoured every one when they come out. If you missed this amazing series, check out the first book, The Akhenaten Adventure.The man behind blockbusters such as ET and Indiana Jones plans to turn the story of a group of genies who pass for humans, but have the power to grant wishes, into a trilogy with two more books to be converted into films. More than a million books have been sold in the series and, as the successor to popular fantasy series such as the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, he is about to reach a worldwide audience.
However Mr Kerr, 51, a former copywriter for Saatchi and Saatchi, who is married to another novelist, Jane Thynne, only ever thought he would be writing the children's books for his son. "I actually was writing an adult book at the time. My older boy was not much of a reader and did not enjoy reading. He had shunned reading for video games and television," he was reported as saying. "It seemed to be time for me to do something about that. I put aside the book I was working on and started to write this book for children. I wrote it really quickly and did not think I was going to get published."
