Journal

Monday, August 05, 2002
Lovely Coraline review up at a Writers and Reviews website at purplepens.com.

And I heard today that there's a US CORALINE retailer poster being rush-produced for bookstores, due to overwhelming demand (ie. lots of bookshop people asking for one). If you have a bookshop, comic shop or similar then you may want to get in touch with Harper Collins and see if you can get one.

The UK booksellers poster of course already exists. And now the first chapter's up online at http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/neilgaiman/ along with a competition, e-cards, and, coming any minute, a screensaver...

...

So last week we had a Variety article about all the things of mine that have been optioned but never gone into production.

This week, good news from Jim Henson Films: the film that I wrote for Dave McKean to direct back in February has been greenlighted by Sony, if Dave can demonstrate that he can bring it in for the money they're giving us. The money is not much in Hollywood terms (although people commit bank robberies and vanish off to South America for much less).

The film's called Mirror-Mask. It's for children. It features a certain amount of live action, and some Dave Mckean-style CGI animation -- the kind of look and feel he established in his short film The Week Before. You can see some stills from that, and from some of his other films, here. It's about a vengeful dark queen, a sleeping white queen, an unreliable juggler and a circus-girl, and it features hungry sphinxes, strange riddles and helpful books. The story is by Dave and me, the dialogue's mostly mine although every now and again Dave would write a scene to show me what he meant and we'd just put it straight into the script, and when I'd write a scene he didn't like he would look at me, and I would change it.

It'll be done for Sony Video, who may elect to release it theatrically, or may just put it out on video and DVD when it's done. We'll see.

And just to give Dave a headache, it looks like his film of our graphic novelSignal to Noise is also happening. He will be shooting a sort of trailer reel for it this week, starring (of all people, considering the post of a few days back) Heathcote Williams as the director.

And he's nearly done with The Wolves in the Walls, next year's picture-book for people who thought The Day I Swapped My Dad For 2 Goldfishdidn't have enough wolves or jam in it.