HandMade Films has hired Charles Shyer to direct Eloise in Paris, the first of several planned big screen adaptations of the Kay Thompson-Hilary Knight children’s book series about the precocious kid who lives in New York’s Plaza Hotel.
Variety says Shyer will write the script with Larry Spencer and Hallie Meyers-Shyer. The latter is Shyer’s 19-year old daughter, whose mother is writer-director Nancy Meyers. A February production start is planned, and the film will shoot in London, Paris and New York.
“The books consisted of a lot of vignettes, and the challenge is to create a cohesive story,” Shyer said. “There is sweetness and comedy, but there is also an underpinning of pathos and humanity.”
Meehan said that the feature will be contemporized and that HandMade has decided that, should there be a sequel to the Shyer-directed film, it will be adapted from the book “Eloise Goes to Hollywood.”
