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Rediff.com  » Movies » New competition for Lord Of The Rings

New competition for Lord Of The Rings

By rediff Entertainment Bureau
March 05, 2004 18:50 IST
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A still from LOTRPeter Jackson may be planning The Hobbit, another film in the The Lord Of The Rings series.

But he will now face competition. And this time, Germany's Cornelia Funke's fantasy novel, Inkheart, will be adapted on screen, reports the The Times, London. The 542-page novel is about a bookbinder, Mo, who can breathe life into stories and characters when she reads out loud.

Distributors New Line Cinema are now banking on Funke's novel as their next pot of gold after the Oscar-winning The Lord Of The Rings

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The 45-year-old Funke is immensely popular in Germany, second only to J K Rowling, the Harry Potter creator. Her books have been inspired by the works of C S Lewis, J M Barrie and J R R Tolkien. She was noticed when a 12-year-old girl wrote to Barry Cunningham, the publisher who discovered Rowling. Apparently, the little girl wanted to know why Funke's books were not available in English, claiming they were better than Harry Potter.

When Cunningham found Funke's books, he was hooked. So, evidently, has the rest of the Western world. The hardback edition of Inkheart sold 30,000 copies in Britain and 200,000 copies in America. It has stayed put for 19 weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List.

The Times quotes Cunningham as saying, 'I thought it [Inkheart] was terribly filmic immediately. It is a gateway into the imagination, like the wardrobe in Narnia or The Borrowers when they slip under the floorboards.'

New Line Cinema has reportedly fought to win the film rights for Funke's book. David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter films, was one of the frontrunner bidders.

Funke has been quoted as saying, 'New Line gave me confidence that the movie will have its own life and be true to my book. I really appreciate what they did with The Lord Of The Rings. A good adaptation for the movies has to be, in some ways, faithful to the book, but in others not. Harry Potter was too faithful. A movie has to have its own breath. You have such a short time to tell a long story. A book stays with you for days and weeks. With a movie, you tell the story in two hours.'

She has admitted to writing the novel with Hollywood actor Brendan Fraser in mind.

She is hoping to cast Brendan Fraser (The Quiet American, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns), saying, 'He's a real actor -- not just a movie star. He has a special voice, which is of vast importance to the character.'

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