Meeting the DiTerlizzi Man
So I met Tony DiTerlizzi this past Thursday. It was, as you might assume, awesome. Actually, I also met his wife Angela and his editor Kevin too, if I'm going to be entirely honest with you here. In the course of our conversing I learned many new and interesting things. I would like to share these facts with you now in a segment I'm calling.
What You Can Learn From Tony DiTerlizzi
- The new movie of Charlotte's Web? Tony helped out on this one. He assures us that it is very good and that after people got incensed at the fart jokes in the initial trailer the gag was removed entirely from the film. Also, his primary concern with this movie was getting Templeton right. Mission has, by his account, been accomplished on that front.
- The new Spiderwick movie? All is going according to plan. Industrial Light & Magic is handling the CGI which is going to prove to be damned cool. If you've seen and enjoyed his Care and Feeding of Sprites book, the CGI will be very faithful to Tony's work. No teaser trailer is due until 2007, however.
- Also relating to the movie, Sarah Bolger is playing Mallory. You may remember her fabulous performance in In America, where she played the older sister. Unbeknownst to Tony and Holly Black, Sarah has always been a huge Spiderwick fan. When she heard about the casting she was thrilled and walked in as the world's most perfect Mallory. Neither Sarah nor Freddie Highmore (who is playing both Jared and Simon AND is 14-years-old) will be speaking with British accents in this film. So... huh?
- The Dragonriders of Pern - For a moment there they were going to make them kid-friendly and Mr. DiTerlizzi was going to do the illustrations. Only it was gonna be freakin' awesome because he was going to do a whole cool sci-fi Buck Rogers look. People forget that the series is just as sci-fi (Earthlings migrated to another planet) as it is fantasy. Anywho, the project sort of didn't go through. Ah well. Someday.
- Selling The Spider and the Fly as a black and white title was really hard. Publishers these days are fairly certain that black and white books don't sell. Except Christ VanAllsburg, of course. And that recent Kevin Henkes. And the fact that Olivia only had a spot of red aside from her black and white world. And and and...
posted by fusenumber8 @ 11:07 AM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
I've just recently found your blog and enjoy checking in on it every day! Loved this post - the Spiderwick books are currently in just about every corner of my house, as all three of my daughters love to read them over and over!! Thanks for sharing all this fun info!
I am very much in love with Tony DiTerlizzi and am completely jealous.
Thanks for sharing the info, though. I'm feeling slight relief at the news about Charlotte's Web.
Oh, Tony's work is magnificient! I have high hopes for the Spiderwick film. Thank you for sharing the news about this and other projects. Go Templeton. Go Sarah.
I just played Trivial Pursuit: Book Lover's Edition not 20 minutes ago. I'll put the question and answer here, letter for letter that threw me for a loop:
Question: What supernatural estate introduces young Jared, Mallory and Simon to brownies and fairies, in books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzido?
Answer: Spiderwick
Tony DiTerlizzido? Well damn. Who the heck did I meet the other day?
But how did you meet him? Was he wandering by your branch and stop by to say hello? Did you call and ask him (and his wife and editor) to meet at an undisclosed location? Were you all in the same take-out Chinese place?
We must all have our secrets. I was invited to join him and five other people (including his wife and editor). All very hush hush, you understand. Free books were involved.
I failed to mention that the Spiderwick is now a combination of all five books. Initially it was only going to be the first three, with the sequel the last two. I commend the switch. It makes a heckuva lot more sense.
Oh, about the Dragonriders of Pern news, I am both excited that it was going to happen, and disappointed that it fell through.
And I meant to comment on a previous post--LOVED those Three Investigators! For me, it was all about good ol' Bob.
"He assures us that it is very good and that after people got incensed at the fart jokes in the initial trailer the gag was removed entirely from the film." Not according to my student who went to a screening this past weekend.
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