Warner Bros has signed up the movie rights of the upcoming book series Beautiful Creatures, which seems like the result of someone cynically trying to mix Harry Potter and Twilight together, to create the ultimate teen mania.
Beautiful Creatures (published today by Little, Brown) is the first in a five-volume series written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl that centers around Ethan Wate, a high school student who hates the town he lives in until he meets and falls for Lena Duchanne, who just so happens to have magical powers as the result of a curse that’s existed in her family for generations. The movie will be written and directed by The Fisher King and The Bridges of Madison County screenwriter Richard LaGravanese, who explained why he thinks this series will convince Twihards looking for a new drug:
I love supernatural stories that have well drawn mythologies, and I liked that this book has all the basic elements of a classic first love story with a supernatural layer over it… So the first time they hear the words boyfriend and girlfriend, they accidentally overhear each other telepathically. Their first kiss comes after he saves her life and their first date is part of a bigger adventure that leads to the unraveling of the mysterious curse that haunts her family.
We knew it had to happen, but did it really have to happen this lazily?
WB, LaGravanese Bewitched By Book [Variety]
