‘The Grimm Legacy’: Disney+ Has Its Eye On A YA Fantasy Franchise
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Disney already has Marvel,Star Wars, and a bunch of other in-house content brewing for their upcoming streaming serviceDisney+, but they’ve also set their sights on a young adult fantasy book series in the hopes of turning it into a full-fledged franchise. The company has hiredDavid Gleeson, the writer of the upcoming J.R.R. Tolkien biopic, to write the screenplay for a feature adaptation of author Polly Shulman’s YA novelThe Grimm Legacy. Read all about it below.
Deadlinesays Disney+ is looking at this as a possible franchise starter, and from the sound of it, this could be a solid fit for the streaming service. Here’s the description of the book fromAmazon:
Gleeson, an Irish filmmaker who’s written movies likeDon’t GoandCowboys & Angels, is about to have his most high-profile credit withTolkienlater this year. Right now he’s just attached to writeThe Grimm Legacy, and no director has been set yet.Jane Goldenring, who executive produced several Disney Channel original movies (includingZapped, starring Zendaya), will produce this adaptation.
The book series consists of three books so far –The Grimm Legacy,The Wells Bequest, andThe Poe Estate– and reading their descriptions, each book seems to feature an entirely new set of characters. The link between the stories is the setting: the New York Circulating Material Repository, a magical library that lends out objects instead of books and contains all manner of spectacular items from various works of fiction.
This seems like an especially smart play for Disney+, because if the setting of the story is the true star, the company won’t ever find themselves in a Robert Downey Jr. situation where they’re forced to pay an actor a huge payday to stay involved with their burgeoning franchise. They can wipe the slate clean every time, bring in a new cast, and keep this thing going for years.
