The Book Thief by Way of Downton Abbey

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Lets move away from the fairy tale based movies and move towards something a little bit different. Everyone loves fairy tales yes, but there are also other very compelling stories out there that can be adapted for the big screen. Markus Zusak’s extremely popular novel The Book Thief is one such story. There is a reason it has been on the New York Times’ bestseller list for 4 years now – that’s an impressive 228 weeks on the top my friends. So it comes as no surprise that Fox 2000 is moving full steam ahead with a film adaptation.

The book is set in Germany during World War II and follows Liesel Meminger who is a foster child to Hans and Rosa. Living outside of Munich, Liesel “scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books.” The story describes Liesels relationship with her foster parents and other residents of their neighborhood as well as a Jewish man hiding in her basement. Liesel, with the help of her foster father, learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors and the Jewish man before he is taken to Dachau.

While no casting has been announced for the project, Variety reports that Downton Abbey helmer Brian Percival has been tapped to direct The Book Thief. The Emmy award winning director is no stranger to period pieces. He has directed three episodes of the latest season of Downton Abbey and has worked on North and South. Although he has had experience directing television shows, Percival is relatively inexperienced when it comes to full-length projects. Will this affect the quality of the film overall? In addition to Percival, Fox 2000 has enlisted Twilight franchise producer Karen Rosenfelt to work behind the scenes of The Book Thief.

If executives plan on keeping to the novel as much as possible, it will present a bit of an interesting challenge from a storytelling perspective. The Book Thief is actually narrated by Death which will present certain challenges when translated to the big screen. The omniscient character’s tone and manner have prompted comparisons to Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events. Such comparisons can be good and bad. Those of us who make cinema our lives and knows everything there is to know about narratives can tell you that relying on a a narrator to tell a story in film can be risky. It can end up very good for the movie or become very annoying very quickly.

We will keep you updated on all the other latest information regarding The Book Thief. The project is aiming for summer start for production which can lead to a premiere at theatres as early as next year.