No doubt looking for another replacement to their
Harry Potter trump card,
THR say Warner Bros. are moving forward with a feature film adaptation of
T.A. Barron's young adult series
The Lost Years of Merlin. Designed as a 12-book series,
Ed Whitworth (a script reader for Oprah Winfrey!) is set to adapt the first two novels for the screen as one film, with a view to creating a viable franchise that can neatly slot in where the boy wizard hangs up his invisibility cloak and wand. The story, which more of less is an origin story for Merlin, goes a little something like this;
"A raging sea tosses a boy upon the shores of ancient Wales," begins the novel's official description, "Left for dead, he has no memory, no name, and no home. But it is his determination to find out who he isto learn the truth about his mysterious powersthat leads him to a strange and enchanted land. And it is there he discovers that the fate of this land and his personal quest are strangely entwined."
Donald De Line (Yogi Bear, Green Lantern) will produce the film that is a separate project from the
Merlin film in development at Working Title and of course the many other King Arthur universe films of which almost every studio in town has one in development. The Lost Years of Merlin had previously been a Paramount property where Sherlock Holmes writer
Simon Kinberg had been writing but when the option ran out, WB were quick to snap it up.