Overview
- Disney confirmed it has acquired theatrical and ancillary rights to Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures series for live-action features, with the project in early development and no production timeline announced.
- Katherine Rundell will adapt the first two books into screenplays and produce alongside her creative partner Charles Collier under Disney’s live-action banner.
- As part of the agreement, Disney gains a first-look relationship with Rundell’s production company Impossible Films, which remains based in London with team members including Alexandra Derbyshire and Simon Bax.
- Multiple outlets report the rights were won in a competitive auction for a substantial seven-figure sum, with Warner Bros. and Netflix among the finalists and Disney’s David Greenbaum cited as a key driver of the deal; the agreement was brokered by Charles Collier.
- The series has sold more than four million copies worldwide, expanded this year from a planned trilogy to five books, and its latest installment made Rundell the first U.K. children’s author since J.K. Rowling to top U.K. and U.S. children’s charts simultaneously.