The First Announcement in Publishers Weekly

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 6/4/2009 1:28:00 PM

This week in Page to Screen—PW's weekly column tracking film rights circulating and sold in Hollywood—a YA trilogy gets second-looks and Franzen's first fiction in five years starts chatter.

In a quiet week after the close of BEA Sunday, the one manuscript that all the scouts seem to be talking about is a children's trilogy called The Familiars by Adam Epstein and Andrew Jacobson. Howie Sanders at UTA is shopping the film rights and, although he confirmed he's been "getting a lot of calls," he's looking to get galleys into producers' hands before closing any deals. Barbara Lalicki at Harper Children's acquired the book over the weekend in a pre-empt from Markus Hoffman at Regal Literary. In the first book, after three young wizard apprentices are kidnapped by the evil queen of a distant land, it is up to their familiars, their magical animal companions -- a street smart alley cat, a precocious blue jay, and a bumbling tree frog -- to save them.

Sanders said when people read the galley they'll "get a feel for how big this book can be."