MRC has announced that Linda Woolverton is set to adapt a live-action Eloise movie based on the book series written by Kay Thompson (Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast, Spellbound), according to Vital Thrills. MRC has already secured the film, television, live stage, and related ancillary rights for the children’s books illustrated by Hilary Knight.
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First published by Simon & Schuster in 1955, the books became an overnight sensation. Over sixty years later and not a day over six, Eloise is so good at being bad, that she has earned respect, respect, respect of precocious adults everywhere. She’s the impish kid in all of us. Eloise is a self-assured child who lives in a luxurious hotel in New York, The Plaza. She is looked after by her British nurse, Nanny, and has two beloved pets: a dog named Weenie and a turtle, Skipperdee, for whom she calls room service and orders “one roast-beef bone, one raisin and seven spoons” and insists that they “charge it please!” She has her own language with endless monologues, and a rather enormous imagination. If something is amiss, Eloise usually has a hand in it.
Pick up your copy of the first book here!
“I couldn’t be more excited and honored to adapt Kay Thompson’s delightful book and character for the screen with MRC Film,” said Woolverton. “I absolutely love Eloise for her mischievousness, her irreverence, her imagination and made-up words. Her playground, the Plaza Hotel, is an iconic symbol of all that’s wonderful about New York City.”
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The books have sold more than 15 million English-language copies to date worldwide. MRC and Woolverton will “work closely with Handmade Films and collaborate with the Thompson estate, illustrator Knight and the book series publisher Simon & Schuster” on the movie adaptation. Handmade Films’ Trudi Franci will executive produce.
