Disney inks deal for Impossible Creatures adaptations

Disney is adapting Katherine Rundell's Impossible Creatures series for the big screen.

The author is set to turn her hugely popular fantasy novels Impossible Creatures and sequel The Poisoned King - which have collectively sold over four million copies around the world - into film screenplays for Walt Disney Studios, while she will also produce the movies alongside her creative partner Charles Collier.

She said in a statement: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be linking arms with Disney.

"It’s a privilege to be writing these screenplays and developing these first movies in the franchise together with Charles, my team at Impossible Films, and with the exceptional team at Disney."

The books are set in the fictional world of the Glimouria Archipelago, which is bursting with magical creatures and adventures.

The first look development deal will give Disney the rights to all of her current and upcoming literary properties.

Bob Igor, Walt Disney Company CEO, added: "When I read Impossible Creatures, I knew it belonged here at Disney.

"I was immediately drawn into the vibrant world Katherine imagined and the possibilities of what we could do together with this story."

Rundell heaped priase on Iger for setting "this collaboration in motion", as she outlined her goals for the future.

She said: "I’m especially grateful to Bob Iger, whose enthusiasm after reading the book helped set this collaboration in motion, and to Alan Bergman and David Greenbaum for being incredible partners throughout this process. "Our ambition is to build Glimouria and Impossible Creatures into a spectacular series of films, so that we can entertain and inspire family audiences across the world."

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter notes that the author has been holding talks about expanding the franchise beyond the planned five books.

Rundell previously revealed how C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia had a profound impact on her as a writer.

She told publisher Pengiun Random House's Secondary Education website: "I’ve always loved fantasy, and grew up reading the masters. Narnia, especially, gave me endless happiness. "And I adored Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Pullman — and the older work too: Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, The Odyssey, the old Norse sagas, and Greek myths.

"I love the scope that modern fantasy gives authors to write about urgent truths — about power, and loss, and endurance — in a way that also offers a thrilling journey and a feast of pleasure.

She also revealed the amount of research she puts into the magical beasts in her books, having spent "many wonderful hours in libraries" reading up on creatures "we were once absolutely convinced were real".

She added: "We used to believe there were unicorns in the wild, which makes perfect sense, really, given that narwhals exist.

"The line between possible and impossible in the natural world is so very thin: there are many things that seem like they should be glorious myths — giraffes, hedgehogs, swifts — that are true."