Warner Bros. Throws P.J. Hogan A ‘Bone’

There two things Hollywood seems to love these days: comic books and franchises. The lure of already established source material and a built in audience, make it an easier propostion for studio heads to throw big money at a movie, and if a project can bring with it an interesting concept as well, all the better.

Case and point, THR reports that Warner Brothers are plucking from the racks of your comic shop to make “Bone” into a feature film directed by “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Peter Pan” helmer P.J. Hogan, with a script penned by Patrick Sean Smith of ABC’s family’s hit frat sitcom “Greek.” For those of us who don’t rummage through comic shops weekly, “Bone” follows three cousins who are small, bald and pale white. These humanlike beings are run out of their hometown and runoff to a mysterious valley where they’re taken in by a girl named Thorn and her grandmother after being hunted by many fantastical creatures. The valley is ruled by an evil force known as the Lord of the Locusts, setting the “Bone” comic series to be a sweeping fantasy with a sharp sense of humor. Published intermittently between 1991 to 2004, the “Bone” series has seen a recent resurgence in popularity after being published by Scholastic as a series of graphic novels.

The film is also being produced by Dan Lin of Lin Production and Australia-based animation house Animal Logic, who produced “Happy Feet 2” and “Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.” So we can sort of see the direction they may be taking this. According to the THR article, Hogan may also be set to do a polish of Smith’s draft, which doesn’t inspire much confidence from this writer. While Hogan has made a good chunk of change at the box office with the ‘90s smash hit “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” his more recent ventures into directing have been mediocre 2003 “Peter Pan” adaptation and “Confessions of Shopaholic,” though perhaps the cartoonish sensibilities of both those projects will lend themselves giving “Bone” a little more panache then Hogan’s recent directorial efforts.

So we’ll see if these initial ingredients bode well for the project, but before he gets started on his, Hogan will wrap up his re-team with Toni Collette, "Mental."