Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment Is Developing New Kids Film Franchise THE GATES
Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment helped shape the childhoods of kids who grew up in the '80s and '90s with films like E.T., Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park. The production company creates a special brand of magical entertainment for kids. They are getting back into action with films like Jurassic World and The BFG, and now they are developing another project called The Gates that could be a whole new family friendly sci-fi franchise.
The project is based on a novel by John Connolly and producer Michael De Luca has hired Blaise Hemingway to adapt the script. The Gates is the first of a trilogy that Amblin acquired last fall. The story follows an 11-year-old boy named Samuel Johnson who teams up with an outcast demon to stop hell on Earth. Here's a full story description from the first book in the series:
Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween, which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Road. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld, but when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe, a gap through which a pair of enormous gates is visible. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out.... Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith, and love to save the world as we know it?
Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy and the courage of a boy who is barely old enough to trick or treat on his own. This novel makes anything seem possible.
The two other novels in the series are titled The Infernals and The Creeps. This sounds like it could make for a great film franchise. A little boy teaming up with a demon to prevent hell on Earth? Count me in! It seems like a story that would fit the Amblin brand perfectly.
Source: Deadline