The film will be produced by Belen Atienza (The Impossible, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Orphanage) and is slated for a fall 2016 release. Bayona won Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Award, The Goya, for his last film, The Impossible, which was distributed by Lionsgate’s Summit label and grossed more than $180 million at the worldwide box office.
The Impossible is the second highest-grossing film of all time in Spain.
A Monster Calls is a visually distinctive drama about a young boy who attempts to deal with his mother’s illness and the bullying of his classmates by escaping into a fantastical world of monsters and fairy tales that deal with courage, loss and faith. Ness wrote the novel based on an original idea by the late Siobhan Dowd, and he and illustrator Jim Kay won Britain’s prestigious Carnegie Medal and Greenaway Medal in 2012, presented to the year’s best children’s literature in the UK. Ness is adapting the screenplay from his novel. Executive Producers on the film are River Road’s Bill Pohlad and Mitch Horwits, Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King, and Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairman Patrick Wachsberger.
“It is an incredible privilege to bring Patrick Ness’ exceptional book to the screen and I couldn’t have imagined better partners joining me in this endeavor. After ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Impossible,’ ‘A Monster Calls’ is the perfect final chapter in a trilogy centered on the extraordinary strength of the mother-child bond,” said Bayona.
A Monster Calls will be distributed by Focus Features domestically, Universal Pictures International for its theatrical and home entertainment release in Spain and Lionsgate International throughout the rest of the world.
