Young-adult novels have been a ripe source of inspiration for studios these days especially post-Twilight and Harry Potter. Magic and supernatural creatures aside, fantasy holds many more possibilities and Warner Bros has its sights on a fantasy novel called Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver trilogy).
THR reports that David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith’s KatzSmith Productions will produce the film adaptation of Scorpio Races for Warner Bros. Scorpio Races has only been out two weeks and “involves mythological flesh-eating [water] horses from Celtic lore, a scraggy island that hosts an annual race, a young horse trainer and a young woman (the first female to enter the competition) who eventually fall for each other.”
[The Shakedown]
I was all onboard with a horse movie until I got to the part about flesh-eating horses! I lost my appetite for a moment. Even though the book is about young love, I thought I might not be able to get over the flesh-eating horses part. I remember growing up with great horse movies, which of course aren’t really about the horse but the people around it, so that was what I was hoping for a new generation of horse-loving girls. This isn’t quite the same. These magical and predatory horses that dwell in Scorpio Races live in the ocean and certainly change the traditional majestic image of horses. These creatures from Celtic lore are fearsome and devious things with shape-shifting into human form capabilities. Knowing that the author has a “fascination with the beauty and the horror of nature” gives these mythological creatures some dimension and provide a fantastical backdrop for Stiefvater’s love story. Now, I find this whole concept more appealing knowing that the monsters in this story aren’t really the carnivorous horses but are actually the human villains.
Have *you* read the book? What do you think of it and how it would do as a film?
Book Teaser:
“It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.
Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.”
[AMAZONPRODUCT=054522490X]
