The young adult fantasy book series by author Charlie Fletcher ‘Stoneheart’ is currently in negotiations with Disney and Imagemovers to pick up film rights to the books. The deal will most likely go down and we have another fantasy franchise to make money from. The only problem with these new fantasy franchises is none of them have ever lived up to the standards of ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘Harry Potter’. Everything esle just seems like they were done half-assed. I would love to see a new a good fantasy series made. The following is the product description from the book:

Now that George Chapman has upset the fragile truce between the warring statues of London, he has been drawn into a war that will test his mettle. He and Edie, a glint who can see the past, may have succeeded in their quest to find the Stoneheart, but their journey is far from over.

Edie and the Gunner, a statue of a World War I soldier, have been captured by the Walker, and it’s up to George to save them. But first he must deal with the three strange veins, made of marble, bronze and stone, that have begun to grow out of his hand and curl around his wrist. Legend has it that unless he successfully completes three challenges, the veins will continue up his forearm, and eventually pierce through his heart.

As George struggles to find the strength within to face the choice he has made, to take the Hard Way, he is determined to use his power for good-even as others wish to harness it for its great potential for evil.

Since Robert Zmeeckis is onboard you can bet that the movies will be shot using motion capture technology and will most likely end up being in 3D since that is his new thing. Which, I think is cool. As long as they tell a good story everything else will fall into place. It should be interesting to see how this all turns out.