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CEO Zareh Nalbandian at Animal Logic HQ in Sydney. (Photo: James Horan).

Animal Logic has two big releases coming up, with 'The Lego Batman Movie' arriving in March to Aussie cinemas, followed by 'The Lego Ninjago Movie' in September..

Al is also gearing up to shoot hybrid live-action/animation feature 'Peter Rabbit' in Sydney, the first step in its bid to become a fully-fledged studio — .a creative enterprise. rather than a .service provider,. as CEO Zareh Nalbandian puts it..

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Is Animal Logic Entertainment, your development arm, based in La?

It.s here as well. Felicity Staunton is a creative executive here, and I have three execs in La. We all travel. They travel here, we travel there. We work as one unit. We.re repped out of CAA, [and] our lawyers are there. But our creative hub is here,...

If you were to corner me in a darkened alley and place a gun against my head and demand to know my favorite comic book of all time, I’d say Jeff Smith’s Bone. And you wouldn’t even have to go through with the theatrics. Ask me about favorite comic book series of all time in […]

The post The Animated ‘Bone’ Movie Gets ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Director Mark Osborne appeared first on /Film.

Whenever an adaptation of a beloved property is announced, no matter the level of excitement and anticipation there is — there is also an unmistakable level of fear to be found among fans. It doesn't matter who is involved, or what information has been released about the adaptation; there is this almost primal reaction that says, very simply, Don't screw this up.

That was, I confess, my first reaction upon discovering that Jeff Smith's Bone is headed to the big screen. I know that it's an irrational response, and that Mark Osborne is a great choice to handle the material...

Kung Fu Panda helmer Mark Osborne has been brought aboard to adapt cult comic Bone for the big screen, according to The Hollywood Reporter, as Warner Bros. lays the foundations for a bona fide CG trilogy.

Pitched as a “very special and unconventional tale,” Bone is the product of celebrated cartoonist Jeff Smith, and follows three gregarious cousins: Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and finally, Smiley Bone. Combining elements of comedy and full-blown fantasy, Smith’s self-published series ran from 1991-2004 and spanned 55 issues in total, lending WB plenty of source material to mine for future, cinematic content. THR notes that Mark Osborne will leverage script duties with Adam Kline (Artemis Fowl).

Nickelodeon had originally held adaptation rights, though after plans for a TV series fell through some years ago, Warner Bros. swooped in to acquire the property in 2008. It’s been a long time coming, then, but a CG animated...

Kung Fu Panda and The Little Prince director Mark Osborne is set to helm a feature film adaptation of Jeff Smith’s cult comic book series Bone. The film is set up as an animated project at Warner Bros. and he will co-write the script with Adam Kline.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything that had to do with Bone. The comics ran from 1991 to 2004, and since then they had a resurgence when Scholastic began releasing them as graphic novels. Here's a brief description of the story:

The comic told of three Bone cousins – Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, all small, bald and humanlike creatures with big noses– who are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert after being run of out Boneville. One by one they find their way into a deep forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures.

Talking to THR about the project,...

According to THR, Mark Osborne (The Little Prince, Kung Fu Panda) has been tapped to direct an animated take on Jeff Smith's Bone for Warner Bros. Even if you're not familiar with the comics, chances are you've seen the likeness of one of the little white characters at some point. The multi-award winning series ran from 1991 to 2004, and has enjoyed cult status for many years since. The story focuses on the Bone cousins (Fone, Phoney and Smiley) and their adventures in the wilderness with a girl named Thorn Harvestar. “Bone is very special and unconventional because it blends elements together that you don’t necessarily expect — soft, little comic characters and epic high-stakes fantasy adventure," Osborne explains. "To carry this into the cinematic realm presents both an opportunity to represent what readers of all ages have loved about the series, while pushing animated storytelling into exciting and different areas.

Mike Cecchini Nov 17, 2016

The director of Kung Fu Panda and The Little Prince will try his hand at adapting Jeff Smith's Bone to the screen.

From the 'what took them so long?' department, Jeff Smith's epic fantasy comic Bone is finally getting the big screen treatment courtesy of Warner Bros. Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda, The Little Prince) will direct, and he'll co-write the script with Adam Kline. There had been rumblings that this was in development before (with director Pj Hogan), but this sounds like it has a shot to actually happen now.

Jeff Smith's Bone is kind of tough to describe here, but it's probably the finest all-ages comic book story of my lifetime. Smith wrote and drew the story, which is about these bizarre, cartoony Bone cousins who leave their home of Boneville and end up on an adventure that spans, well, over a thousand pages of comics.

“The Little Prince” director Mark Osborne is set to adapt Warner Bros. animated adaptation of “Bone,” the Eisner-winning comic series from Jeff Smith, TheWrap has learned. Adam Kline has been tapped to co-write the screenplay with Osborne. Dan Lin’s Lin Pictures is producing with Animal Logic’s Zareh Nalbandian, with the intention of making a trilogy of animated feature films. Also Read: 'Little Prince' Director Mark Osborne Says Paramount Will No Longer Handle Film's Us Release The story follows the three Bone cousins — Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone — who are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert after being.

After languishing in development for nearly five years, Warner Bros. is finally moving forward with their animated comic book adaptation Bone. The studio has brought on Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne to take the helm on this project, with Dan Lin set to produce through his Lin Pictures company. The studio intends to have this project kick off a trilogy of animated features.

The Holllywood Reporter reports that Mark Osborne has also been tapped to executive produce with Lin Pictures' Mark Bauch and co-write the script with Adam Kline. Warner Bros. first picked up the rights to Jeff Smith's Eisner-winning comic book series in 2008. Here's what Mark Osborne had to say about coming aboard this project in a statement.

"Bone is very special and unconventional because it blends elements together that you don't necessarily expect - soft, little comic characters and epic high stakes fantasy adventure. To...

Mark Osborne, fresh off of directing The Little Prince, has come aboard to helm Warner Bros.’s animated adaptation of Bone, the Eisner-winning comic series from Jeff Smith.

At the same time, Adam Kline has been tapped to co-write the script with Osborne. The moves re-energize the adaptation for the studio, which first picked up the rights around 2008.

Dan Lin’s Lin Pictures is producing with Animal Logic’s Zareh Nalbandian with the goal of making a trilogy of animated feature films.

The comic told of three Bone cousins – Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, all small, bald and humanlike...

Mark Osborne has taken on Kung fu-fighting pandas, a beloved French tale of a prince from a tiny planet, and a sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea. Next up, the New Jersey-born animation director is looking to bring a comic book series from panel to screen, though he wouldn’t yet reveal which one. “I’m in talks about doing another adaptation,” Osborne told me yesterday while we were discussing his Little Prince film. “I will say it’s an iconic comic book series but not [about] a superhero. It’s an independent comic series.” He revealed that it would be an animated film adaptation but wouldn’t say much more about the project. Osborne has retweeted a couple tweets lately about Bone, Jeff Smith’s awards-showered series that’s getting its first new storyline in 10 years in the new Bone: Coda. Could this be what Osborne’s working on?...

San Diego, CA—July 22, 2016—Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education, and media company, has announced a contest to find talent to debut on its acclaimed Graphix imprint for children and teen readers. Graphix focuses on creator-driven books that bring exceptional art, rich content, and strong storytelling to realistic fiction, memoir, fantasy, and more. The Graphix imprint is committed to finding and championing new voices in the children’s graphic novel space. This contest will seek submissions from debut comic artists who are U.S. residents, 18 years or older, and who are unpublished and not currently under contract to publish a book with another publisher. Up to five winning entries will be selected to receive an offer to publish their work with Graphix and a $15,000 advance. The full contest rules and submission requirements, including information about what the Graphix editorial team looks for in manuscript proposals, can be found at...

Producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have brought in former AMC executive Owen Shiflett as new head of television. He will shepherd TV development and production under Parkes + MacDonald’s first-look deal with Universal TV. One of the first projects Parkes, MacDonald and Shiflett are exploring is a TV drama adaptation of Rasl, the black-and-white science fiction noir comic book by award-winning Bone creator Jeff Smith. Parkes+MacDonald are closing a deal for the…...

It is officially summer for us! Yay! So, we thought this would be the perfect time to tell you about our summer reading plans. In this week’s episode, we tell you about the Cbldf and announce our Challenged Graphic Novel Reading Challenge. Our hope is that kids and parents (and everyone else) will read along with us. Because you seriously can’t question that book be suitable for library shelves if you haven’t read it, right?

This summer we will be reading 8 graphic novels that have been challenged or banned in school libraries and then every week we will discuss one of the titles. We’ll talk about why it was challenged, how to best talk about the questioned topics or themes in the book with your kids. We’ll also tell you from a kid’s perspective how we viewed the appropriateness of the books for us,...

Bone: Out from Boneville Tribute Edition

By Jeff Smith

192 ages, Scholastic Graphix, $14.95

Bone is a phenomenon that just keeps growing, it seems. Jeff Smith’s self-published debuted in 1991 and charmed readers who discovered the black and white fantasy. However, he found a brand new audience when Scholastic added the series, in color for the first time, to their Graphix imprint. There now are the nine volumes, Rose (with art by Charles Vess), Tall Tales, Bone Handbook and three illustrated prose novels from Tom Sniegoski.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of this incredibly successful partnership, Scholastic is releasing next week a hardcover Tribute Edition of volume one. The complete, still-charming is on hand but there is also additional material. We start with the 10-page poem “An Ode to Quiche”, written by and critiqued by the monsters who plague the fellow from Boneville. There are nine pinups culled from the other...

New York, NY—January 29, 2015—Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its groundbreaking Graphix imprint in 2015, with a yearlong celebration to include collectible giveaways, special events, and new publishing. Graphix is dedicated to publishing engaging, age-appropriate graphic novels for children and teens. Supported by librarians, teachers, and most important, kids, Graphix titles have become bestsellers around the globe and continue to receive awards and critical acclaim including multiple Eisner Award wins and nominations, a Stonewall Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe nomination, and 14 New York Times bestsellers to date.

In celebration, twelve Graphix artists have each created original art in honor of the 10th anniversary of Graphix: James Burks, Nathan Fox, Jimmy Gownley, Matthew Holm, Kazu Kibuishi, Mike Maihack, Dave Roman, Greg Ruth, Jeff Smith, Raina Telgemeier, Doug TenNapel, and Craig Thompson. Prints by these...

Superhero nerds and comics snobs, gather and rejoice! We're proud to make an exclusive announcement: Marvel Comics is about to publish the first new Miracleman stories in 20 years. And what's more, one of those stories will be the first-ever publication of a long-lost Miracleman script written nearly 30 years ago by psychedelic Scottish comics legend Grant Morrison. On New Year's Eve, you can head to your local comics shop (or online retailer, if you hate the smell of paper) and buy Miracleman Annual No. 1. It will feature the following delights: the aforementioned never-before-seen Grant Morrison story, which will be drawn by Marvel Entertainment's chief creative officer (and veteran penciler) Joe Quesada; a brand-new Miracleman story written by Peter Milligan and drawn by Mike Allred; a cover by Italian illustrator Gabriele Dell'Otto; and a variant cover by Bone writer-artist Jeff Smith. For the comics world, this is a huge...

Skottie Young’s brand new Rocket Raccoon series is taking the comic book industry by storm, garnering rave reviews from critics and fans alike! Today, Marvel is proud to unveil that legendary cartoonist Jeff Smith (Bone, Rasl) will lend his pen to a jaw-dropping variant cover to the sold-out first issue available exclusively at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International!

“How cool is it to see Jeff Smith — the creator of the seminal Bone —render Marvel’s Sdcc exclusive variant cover, featuring this year’s breakout comic character? Pretty cool,” says Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso.

As if you didn’t need another reason to head to the comic event of the year, this stunning cover will only be available for purchase at the Marvel Booth at Comic-Con International: San Diego. Jeff Smith’s Rocket Raccoon #1 variant joins an array of soon to be announced merchandise that will be available...

Grab your sonic screwdriver and set the time-space co-ordinates on your Tardis’ for Kendal, 17th October 2014! The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has announced a number of events to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who in comics, the world’s longest-running science fiction TV-inspired tie-in strip.

Doctor Who fans celebrated 50 years of the Doctor Who TV show last year, but some may not know that the first comic strip based on the show was published one year after the series launch, in TV Comic. Since then, Doctor Who has featured in numerous comic titles including Countdown, Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Adventures in the UK. Idw were the first Us publisher to produce a regular Doctor Who title, as well as several limited series – a license recently picked up by Britain’s very own Titan Comics, out from July onwards.

Lined up for this year’s Lakes Festival are Dez Skinn,...

Boom! Entertaiment’s Lumberjanes is currently one of the most fun and creative comics out now. Boasting an all-female creative team and cast, it follows a group of five best friends, who get into all kinds of trouble at a summer camp that is more than meets the eye. Writers Noelle Stevenson (Nimona) and Grace Ellis, artist Brooke Allen, and colorist Maarta Laiho (Regular Show) bring this mixture of buddy comedy and supernatural adventure to life. At AwesomeCon, a comics convention in Washington, DC, I got the opportunity to interview Lumberjanes artist Brooke Allen about her work and career.

SoS: I did some research and saw you did some non-fiction comics about Washington DC. How did you transition from doing those kind of comics to doing stuff for Boom! like Lumberjanes

Brooke Allen: It wasn’t too hard of a transition. It’s all narrative. Boom! editors Whitney [Leopard] and Shannon...

Few romances hit harder than the first crush: powerful, inarticulate, star-crossed, lighthearted, tragic and melodramatic. Fone Bone’s puppy love for Thorn feels authentic, one of the many triumphs of Jeff Smith’s Bone. In a medium jammed with women in refrigerators, Fone’s crush is refreshingly innocent, whimsical, charming and doomed.

She’s a tough but sweet human girl with a mysterious past. He’s a Bone from Boneville: three-foot tall, completely white creatures, whose heads and noses are, proportionally, two melons of equal diameter. Though he’s nearly always naked with the exception of gloves or mittens and a paper bag looking snow hat, it’s not even clear that Fone Bone has genitalia, a serious hurdle for any couple. It’s much cuter than it sounds.

Thorn is cool, intelligent, beautiful, friend who’s always there for you, but also unattainable. Jeff Smith renders earnest scenes, like...

It All Gives Me A Headache: Part Three (otherwise known as “Multiverse University”) is pre-empted this week to present a column by a special guest.

A few months before her birthday, Isabel asked me if I watched Doctor Who. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Do you?” She hadn’t, but all her friends were raving about Matt Smith. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll get you the DVD set of Doctor Who.”

But I made a mistake. I only got her the 11th Doctor’s series. I figured that if she liked Matt, I would backtrack and get her the Chris Eccleston and David Tennant series.

But my brother thought it would be best to start at the beginning – plus I think he was curious about the whole Whovian phenomenon – so, using Netflix, Isabel and he have been binging on the Time Lord, starting with the 9th Doctor.

They’re both hooked.

Rasl is a parallel universe-hopping art thief on the run from the military for damaging experimental hardware based on the science of Nikola Tesla. He’s being tailed by a lizard-faced man out to capture something valuable in Rasl’s possession. Also each jump – or “drift” – Rasl takes, damages his health to the point where his life is threatened every time he drifts.

You know how some books start off really promisingly by throwing a lot of mysterious and confusing but exciting ideas and scenes at you and you just get caught up in it, enjoying the ride? That’s how the first book in this series reads like. Rasl – we never know why he chose the name when his real name is Robert – dimension-hopping, wearing bizarre technology and stealing art while on the run from shadowy, lizard-faced creeps? That’s fun. The fast-paced first book, “The Drift”, is helped...

Chickenhare By Chris Grine 160 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $10.99 I have no idea what possessed Chris Grine to add a chicken’s legs to a rabbit’s body but he has blended two animals into the unique creature Chickenhare. Created back in 2005, Grine published two graphic novels through Dark Horse before going to the web with a portion of his third story. Now, Scholastic’s Graphix imprint has brought the first book out in full color for the first time this month. Some compare the series to Jeff Smith’s wonderful Bone, but really, beyond some surface similarity with the artwork, they are very different. First, Bone has a deep mythology and sophistication to the characterizations and writing that set it apart from similar fare. Grine’s work is very entertaining and well-crafted but he’s intentionally creating stories for far younger readers than Smith was aiming for. While his work is All Ages,...

Banned Books Week is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The annual event focuses on publications that have received censorship challenges over the years. As one of the supporting organisations, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (Cbldf) has published a list of 19 graphic novels that have been the subject of attempted bans. The list includes the acclaimed graphic novels Bone by Jeff Smith, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and perennial comics classics (more)...

So it came to my attention by way of an amazingly nice lass that some forward thinking teacher-types are slowly coming around the bend. Yup, they are looking toward comic books, those evil things, as potential fodder for their classrooms. Gasp! And, as it would seem, this very nice girl asked me – little old me – to give my two cents on the matter. And because I love killing two birds with one stone, I figured this outta make a great li’l rant to share with you, my adoring public. Of course, I realize now I admitted to the glee I feel when I commit aviaricide. Well, there went my fan-base. Tally ho!

I know back in the olden days, comics were largely seen as kitchy wastes of ink and paper. Kids buried in them were potentially violent sociopaths just waiting to commit crimes of laziness. But by the time...

Jeff Smith has teased his follow-up to Rasl. The cartoonist has promised a more lighthearted forthcoming project. "I'm working on it right now," he told Paste Magazine regarding the mysterious work. "I have some props on my desk, that are staring at me getting ready. But I'm going to be mum about it before I get a little bit more to show. "I'm not ready to say the title or anything, but I think it will be humour. It'll be closer to Bone (more)...

Back in January, Jeff Smith's "Bone" made its biggest stride towards the big-screen in quite some time. P.J. Hogan was attached to direct, with "Greek" creator Patrick Sean Smith hired to tackle the script. But eight months later, things have yet to move much further, according to Smith himself.

"I like everybody involved. They’re all working very hard on it, but it’s becoming apparent to me that I write comics that are just incredibly hard to adapt into movies," the cartoonist told Paste Magazine in a new interview. "So I don’t know. They’re still rewriting the scripts and it’s still in motion. They’re still trying to make it happen."

"Everything I’ve seen I’ve thought was very good," he continued. "I like the director on a personal level, and I think his movies are very interesting and good. I'm just waiting for...

In Comic Relief, Paste chats with some of the most influential writers and artists in sequential art to discuss the work that inspired them as well as their own contributions. This week features indie icon Jeff Smith, the writer and artist behind the epic Bone saga and hardboiled sci-fi thriller Rasl, which concluded earlier this month. In early 2008, Smith pivoted from the whimsical, high-fantasy tone he’d established in his 55-issue Bone title to focus on an alcoholic, womanizing scientist named Rob who also happens to steal art from parallel dimensions. The wildly inventive, high concept Rasl spun such influences...

I have been a die-hard science fiction and fantasy fan since before I knew what those words really meant. Genre fiction had yet to be uttered as an epithet in my general direction and I knew, long before I had terminology to define it, that I preferred a hefty dose of escapism in my reading materials. When it came right down to it, I’ve had plenty of reality to deal with, thank you very much, and it was nice to go play in someone else’s sandbox for a while. Sure, they were never free of hazards both familiar and unprecedented, but they were at least a step removed from reality by virtue of the fact that they had specific elements that had nothing to do with the world that I inhabit.

There has never been a love-hate relationship with comic books for me. I had a phase where...

At any given moment in the nebulous world of big studio film production there are as many phantoms floating around as there are solid movies made. Regardless of whether these loosely connected collections of ideas, scripts, and attached names ever find a home and a green light, these potential projects permeate production offices, studio meetings, agents’ agendas as well as blogs and news sites just like this.

Of these phantoms, those that draw the most passionate feedback, whether they spark hope for the possibility of seeing a childhood memory brought to life on the big screen or threaten to rip apart the internet under the weight of fans’ collective rage, are those that are adapted from works of science fiction and fantasy. These adaptations continue to be the go to projects of many producers due to the burgeoning success of the genres in film and television (thanks to the floodgate...

I've heard a lot of great things about Jeff Smith's Bone over the years, and yet I still know next to nothing about it. The black-and-white indie comic was published between 1991 and 2004 and spanned some 65 issues. Apparently the series revolves around three white, bald creatures who also happen to be cousins named Phoncible P. "Phoney" Bone, Smiley Bone, and Fone Bone, who are exiled from their hometown of Boneville. It is an epic fantasy series with a lighthearted, comedic tone and was eventually re-released in colour through Scholastic, selling over a million copies. With those kind of numbers, it makes sense that someone would want to turn it into a movie; Warner Brothers acquired the rights back in 2008 and are just now starting to move forward with it. Last week they announced that P.J. Hogan (Peter Pan) will direct the film from a script written by Patrick Sean Smith...

Since the color editions of Bone began appearing nearly a decade ago, Jeff Smith’s delightful series has become synonymous with Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. In 2009, Scholastic concluded a deal that allows them to publish expansion material set in the Bone universe such as the Tall Tales collection that came out a while back.

Last year, a new series, Quest for the Spark, began but what made this unique was that these books would be illustrated prose works. Tom Sniegoski, who collaborated on Tall Tales, has been penning the stories while Smith (with colorist Steve Hamaker) has provided the covers and spot illustrations. Volume two is due out momentarily with volume three coming this summer.

When this was first announced, Smith noted on his website, “I was a bit unsure about this project when Tom first suggested it, but when I read the first book I laughed so hard, I agreed to do it.

Jeff Smith’s Bone Lands Director

A crazy-popular comic book is about to get the big screen treatment with a little help from a Greek and a Shopaholic. This means Bone will one day come to a theater near you. P. J. Hogan is the director of such films as Muriel’s Wedding, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Confessions of a Shopaholic. Yes, he’s the Shopaholic I was speaking of, and he has just won the gig of directing the upcoming comic book adaptation.

According to THR, Bone, with it’s easily recognizable white characters and red title font, is a cult-favorite from creator Jeff Smith. Smith’s current series is called Rasl, but in Bone, three cousins from the Bone family find themselves in a strange land. The cousins are small, bald, rounded caricatures with human features. In the Valley, where they wind up, other animal-like creatures hunt the cousins.

A couple of years ago we brought you the news when Warner Bros. Pictures snagged the rights to Jeff Smith‘s beloved comic series Bone. Not much has been heard about the progress of the project since then, and we were beginning to wonder if it may never even happen.

Now, THR reports that Patrick Sean Smith (Greek) has been hired by the studio to pen the big-screen adaptation, P.J. Hogan (Mental) has been lined up to direct the film, and Dan Lin of Lin Pictures and Animal Logic will produce the project for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Bone is a 55-issue comic book series spanning 1991 to 2004 that follows “three cousins from the Bone family who are small, white and bald humanlike creatures with big noses. The trio are run out of their hometown and find themselves in a mysterious valley where they are separated and hunted by other creatures. They...

Those who've spent the past four years waiting for a big-screen adaptation of independent comic Bone may finally be rewarded.

Pj Hogan (Muriel's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding, Peter Pan) has been hired to direct a film version of Jeff Smith's highly-regarded stories.

The comic ran from 1991 to 2004 and followed three cousins - Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone - who become lost in a strange valley and caught up in an ancient conflict with an evil force called the Lord of the Locusts.

Warner Bros picked up the screen rights back in 2008 and, according to HeatVision, it's now been resuscitated.

Along with the hiring of a director, Patrick Sean Smith has been appointed to write the new film. Animal Logic, an Australian animation house behind Happy Feet 2 and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, will be involved in the 3D computer-animated movie, which is hoped...

Jeff Smith’s beloved comic series “Bone,” a fantasy story about three lumpy, white, people-looking things, has been the subject of movie adaptation talks for quite some time. First Paramount was going to do something with the property, then Nickelodeon, and finally the rights landed over at Warner Bros., where last word was that they were planning a CG-animated trilogy, news that was beefed up by a four-minute short that showed off what the Bone cousins could look like. I’m not certain if these new developments are attached to that short in any way, or even if a trilogy is still the direction WB is planning on going with this one, but according to Heat Vision there are new developments concerning at least some sort of animated Bone project. They say that Sean Patrick Smith, the creator of the ABC Family series Greek, has been tapped to write a script for a Bone film, with...

Sherlock Holmes producer Dan Lin just can't stay away from fantasy worlds. Only yesterday we brought an update on his attempt to bring Jeff Smith’s graphic series Bone to the screen and now he’s part of the team getting Tad Williams’ sci-fi novel set Otherland adapted.The story is set 100 years in the future and finds a group of unlikely heroes trying to evade an assassin while they venture through huge digital worlds. En route, they must uncover a conspiracy that threatens nothing less than the destruction of humanity.Williams’ books hit Us bookshelves between 1996 and 2001, with the plot spread across City Of Golden Shadow, River Of Blue Fire, Mountain Of Black Glass and Sea Of Silver Light.With Warners executives hoping to turn them into a Pile Of Green Money, Lin has hired John Scott III – whose zombie script Maggie opened plenty of doors after it landed...

The creator of ABC Family's Greek is making the move to feature films. THR reports that Patrick Sean Smith is set to write an adaptation of the comic Bone for Warner Bros. P.J. Hogan is attached to direct the Jeff Smith cult-favorite. The fantasy is being produced by Dan Lin of Lin Pictures and Animal Logic, after Warners picked up the rights in 2008.

The story follows "three cousins from the Bone family, small, bald and humanlike creatures with big noses. The trio are run out of their hometown and find themselves in a mysterious valley where they are separated and hunted by other creatures. They are taken in by a girl named Thorn and her grandmother, and they find out that the valley is threatened by an evil force called the Lord of the Locusts."

Smith published the comics from 1991 to 2004. Thanks to Scholastic, a new generation of fans...

Almost four years since the film was first announced, Warner Bros. have finally found a director to bring Jeff Smith’s indie comic book Bone to the big screen. The Hollywood Reporter say P.J. Hogan (Confessions of a Shopaholic, My Best Friend’s Wedding) will helm based on a script by Patrick Sean Smith (creator of ABC’s family show Greek).

The comic fantasy series followed three cousins from the Bone family who are small, white and bald human-like creatures with big noses. The trio are run out of their hometown and find themselves in a mysterious valley where they are separated and hunted by other creatures. They are taken in by a girl named Thorn and her grandmother, and find out that the valley is threatened by an evil force called the Lord of the Locusts. Issues were released irregularly between 1991 and 2004.

Although clearly an animated approach would work best,...

Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone are nowhere closer to Boneville, but fans of their adventures are two steps closer to seeing "Bone" realized on the big screen.

The Hollywood Reporter has the news that "Greek" creator Patrick Sean Smith has been tapped to adapt Jeff Smith's "Bone" for Warner Bros., with filmmaker P.J. Hogan attached to direct. It's the first concrete news on the project in quite a while, with Smith most recently giving an update this past summer that a new "Bone" screenplay was in the works.

"Bone" tells the story of the three Bone cousins — the genuine Fone, the goofy Smiley and the greedy Phoney — who have been cast out of their beloved home of Boneville after one of Phoney's many schemes went awry. What starts as a seemingly harmless cartoonish journey turns into an epic quest filled with warriors, rat creatures, dragons and worse,...

There is a Boy in my home who will be very, very happy that this film is moving forward.Jeff Smith's Bone is one of the most popular series of kid friendly graphic novels on the market so it is no surprise that there has been interest in creating a film version for some time now. Warner Brothers bought the rights in 2008 but things have been generally quiet on the development front since. But not any more.Director Pj Hogan is attached to direct the animated feature, something of an odd choice given his past resume (Muriel's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding, Confessions Of A Shopaholic) and The Hollywood Reporter now brings word that Greek creator Patrick Sean Smith has been brought on to write...

I’ll just admit: the extent of this writer’s familiarity with Bone is the space it occupies in my mind as “those thick books I see the spine of while perusing the graphic novel section of Barnes & Noble.” But before fans launch emails mocking me for any cultural missteps on my own part, be happy knowing that I’ll learn more about it soon enough.

That’s because THR brings news of Warner Bros. moving forward on their animated adaptation of the Jeff Smith series; the studio’s hired Greek creator Sean Patrick Smith to adapt the series for the page, while also picking up Peter Pan and Confessions of a Shopaholic director P.J. Hogan to helm. It’s said that the latter will “polish the script” handed in by Smith, which, sooner or later, will be worked into cartoon magic by Happy Feet and Legend of the Guardians animators Animal Logic.

For many years a film has been in development based on the wonderful comic series Bone by Jeff Smith. The comic tells the story of three cousins lost in a strange land, where they're caught in the flare-up of an old conflict and realization of an ancient prophecy. Bone was one of the best things to come out of the self-publishing wave of black and white comics in the early '90s. Initially championed by Dave Sim in the pages of Cerebus and very quickly embraced by both critics and audiences, the series ran 55 issues and stands as a landmark piece of comic storytelling. It has been republished in color and seems to find a new audience every few years. The last time we heard about a possible film was when Jeff Smith revealed [1] that he was "actually excited" about a four-minute CGI test clip. Warner Bros. is planning an...

Now that "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars" are done and "The Hobbit" films fast approach, you might be wondering what the next big fantasy epic on the horizon could be.

Look no further than "Bone," Jeff Smith's indie comic book sensation that's one part Walt Disney, one part Hayao Miyazaki, and about eight parts "Lord of the Rings."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. is now one step closer to bringing this charming piece of cartoon mythology to the screen courtesy of director P.J. Hogan ("My Best Friend's Wedding") and screenwriter Patrick Sean Smith who created the hit ABC Family show "Greek."

The Australian Hogan previously delved into the realm of mythmaking with his 2003 "Peter Pan," which proved, if nothing else, that the guy can handle a visual effect or two. Warners has had good luck in the past hiring Aussies to helm movies with little animated creatures...

Warner Bros. picked up the rights to Jeff Smith’s comic book fantasy epic, Bone, back in 2008. The studio has since been working to bring the tale of cousins Fone Bone, Phony Bone, and Smiley Bone (all of whom physically look like crosses between Pogo and Snoopy) to the big screen in 3D CGI form ever since.

Back in Summer 2011, Smith revealed that he’d seen test footage from the first Bone movie, which could theoretically be the first in a trilogy of animated flicks based on 1,300 pages-worth of graphic novel material. Jump to the present and it appears that a new screenwriter, along with a director, have officially signed up to man the helm on (at least) the first Bone film.

Heat Vision is reporting that Patrick Sean Smith (the creator of Greek) ...

Click to continue reading ‘Bone’ Comic Book Adaptation Snags A New Screenwriter & Director...

Beloved Comic Book Hero: A movie based on Jeff Smith’s classic, long-running, and quite wonderful comic book series Bone is moving forward. P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding) is attached to direct, and Patrick Sean Smith (TV’s Greek) has been hired to write a new draft of the script, with production expected to begin later this year. (The Hollywood Reporter) Superhero Sequel: A sequel to Hancock, the 2008 superhero movie starring Will Smith and Charlize Theron, is under consideration. Director Peter Berg says that he’s attended meetings with Smith and producers Michael Mann and Akiva Goldsmith, and the group has “started to hash out an idea for sequel.” (Comic Book Movie via The Playlist) Oscar’s Foreign-Language Shortlist: The Academy of...

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The Stand

"The Invasion" and "Blood Creek" scribe David Kajganich has been hired to work on the script for the proposed Ben Affleck-directed film adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand" at Warner Bros. Pictures.

Kajganich also worked on an as-of-yet unproduced feature adaptation of King's "It". [Source: Vulture]

Bone

Patrick Sean Smith, creator of ABC Family's "Greek", has been hired to pen the adaptation of Jeff Smith's independent comic book "Bone" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding," "My Best Friend's Wedding") is now attached to direct the fantasy story of three cousins from the Bone family who find themselves in a mysterious valley where they are separated and hunted by other creatures ruled by an evil force called the Lord of the Locusts. [Source: Heat Vision]

Snow Piercer

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" scribe Kelly Masterson is set to do a rewrite of Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook's...

After nearly four years since Warner Bro. Studios announced they were adapting Jeff Smith's multiple award-winning fantasy comic series Bone, a director has finally been chosen to helm the project. P.J. Hogan (Confessions of a Shopaholic, My Best Friend's Wedding) will helm the big screen adaptation of Bone. The comic series ran from 1991 to 2004 and was both written and drawn by Jeff Smith. Over the course of it's release it garnered 10 Eisner and 11 Harvey Awards, cementing it's legacy in the comic book community. The series is renowned for maintaining a humerus edge despite it's large fantasy scope. Jeff Smith has since re-released every Bone collected volume, originally released in black and white, through Scholastic Media (enhanced in full color) making the renowned comic available...

Director P.J. Hogan (Peter Pan) has signed on to direct the long-gestating adaptation of Jeff Smith’s comic series Bone with a script from Patrick Sean Smith (ABC's Greek). Bone ran from 1991 to 2004 and won many awards, including ten Eisner awards. The series has kind of a cult status and was predominantly self published by Smith. Warner brothers secured the rights back in 2008, probably really not knowing what the hell they got themselves into. On the surface, Bone looks like a...