The Dreaming

Meet Neil Gaiman, prolific author of horror and fantasy fiction, graphic novels and kids books. More than a dozen of his books and stories have been optioned by Hollywood producers. Not one has yet been produced.

Gaiman is hoping his luck is about to change.

Bill Mechanic’s Pandemonium Films has secured film rights to Gaiman’s new bestselling illustrated kids suspense story, “Coraline,” for Buena Vista. Henry Selick (”The Nighmare Before Christmas”) will direct from his own adaptation, and Michelle Pfeiffer is said to be interested in the lead.

Mechanic declined comment on casting, but told Daily Variety he expects the pic will likely lense in first-quarter 2003 as one of Pandemonium’s first productions.

“Coraline,” just out from HarperCollins, is the story of a bored girl who discovers a portal to a sinister universe behind a locked door in her family’s apartment. The book “reads like a slightly darker ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” Mechanic said.

HARVEY AT THE HELM?: Mechanic is hardly the first Hollywood honcho to see the cinematic potential of Gaiman’s writing. Miramax co-chair Harvey Weinstein, who hired Gaiman to translate the screenplay for “Princess Mononoke,” is so enamored of the author’s work that he wants to direct a short film based on Gaiman’s short story “Chivalry.”

That’s right, a short film directed by Harvey Weinstein.

“I love the story,” Weinstein said, “and it would be a great chance to work on directing before taking on ‘Mila 18′” — the Leon Uris adaptation Weinstein has said he’d like to helm as a feature film.
Gaiman’s other projects in development include the novel “Good Omens” (co-authored by Terry Pratchett), which Terry Gilliam has said may be his next feature, and an adaptation of Nicholson Baker’s novel “The Fermata,” which Gaiman is writing for Robert Zemeckis’ Image Movers.
Warner Bros. has optioned the graphic novel series “The Sandman” and “Death: The High Cost of Living”; the novel “Neverwhere” is under option to Henson Pictures; and Gaiman is collaborating with Brian Froud on an original fairy tale for Sony animation.

Gaiman has numerous other projects in active development, but it now appears “Coraline” may beat them all to the screen.

“I’ve long ago got past the point of expecting any of them to happen,” Gaiman said. “The real art form of Hollywood is the deal.”

GOOD COMPANY: Gaiman, who first became popular as a writer of graphic novels, can take solace in the company of other genre writers like Jim Thompson and Elmore Leonard. Both were wildly popular among a small circle of devoted readers before bursting onto the Hollywood scene — though Thompson was dead before his career really took off, as movies like “The Grifters” and “After Dark, My Sweet” helped spearhead a full-blown Thompson revival in the 1990s.

Ironically, Gaiman’s appeal in Hollywood, which according to HarperCollins executive editor Jennifer Brehl may stem from his high-concept plots that hold out “the possibility of magic existing in our everyday world,” may be precisely what makes them so difficult to adapt.

But despite the development hurdles thrown in his path, Gaiman, repped by CAA and the Writers House, maintains a good-humored interest in Hollywood. “It’s always been the storytelling that has fascinated me,” he said. “Also the learning process — learning to write different kinds of books.”

In addition to his ambitious writing schedule — Gaiman is under contract at HarperCollins for another novel and illustrated book for kids, as well as two novels and a short story collection for adults — he runs a Web site with some 500,000 regular visitors. He’s also still committed to writing screenplays, and broadening his horizons by adapting other writers’ books.

“Coraline,” published this month by HarperCollins Children’s Books, is the story of a bored young girl who, in the course of exploring her family’s new apartment, discovers a door leading to a sinister alternate world. No cast has been announced, though a posting on Gaiman’s official Web site last week claimed that Michelle Pfeiffer was set to star. The posting has since been changed to state that the film will star a “well-known and highly thought-of actress.”

Buena Vista Pictures Distribution will release the film as part of its exclusive deal with Bill Mechanic’s Pandemonium, with “Coraline” expected to start production early next year for a late 2003 release.

“We knew we wanted to make ‘Coraline’ the minute we read Neil’s novel in galley form,” Mechanic said. “Henry Selick is a visionary filmmaker, and the perfect director to bring Neil’s spooky, alternative-universe masterpiece to life onscreen.”

In addition to the critically acclaimed “Nightmare Before Christmas,” Selick’s credits include “James and the Giant Peach” and “Monkeybone.”

WARNING: This book tells a fascinating and disturbing story that frightened me nearly to death. Unless you want to find yourself hiding under your bed with your thumb in your mouth, trembling with fear and making terrible noises, I suggest you step very slowly away from this book and go find another source of amusement, such as investigating an unsolved crime or making a small animal out of yarn.”

That, of course, is high praise from Lemony Snicket, author of the wildly popular Series of Unfortunate Events novels and the current master of deliciously disturbing children’s fare. With the arrival of Coraline Jones, the genre has a new heroine.

Coraline, the first children’s novel from author Neil Gaiman, reveals the story of a bored little girl on summer vacation whose parents are too busy to entertain her.

Other residents of the house in which their new flat is located offer little prospect of long-term amusement: The Misses Forcible and Spink, portly retired actresses who live for their various Highland terriers and their memories of the stage; old Mr. Bobo in the apartment under the eaves who claims to be training a mouse circus to play oompah oompah” (they insist on playing toodle oodle,” possibly because they are eating the wrong type of cheese).

To relieve her boredom, Coraline begins exploring the new apartment and discovers a door that appears to lead nowhere. When Coraline’s mother opens it with the large old rusty key hung from the kitchen door frame, all Coraline sees is a wall of bricks. Later, when Coraline finds herself alone in the house and investigates further, she opens the door to find a mirror-image apartment inhabited by her other parents.”

Initially, the new world looks inviting. Her other parents lavish Coraline with attention. Meals are far superior. The colour scheme is brighter. Animals speak. And the Misses Spink and Forcible _ young and svelte _ put on death-defying shows on a continuous basis for an appreciative audience of dogs.

But even from the start, there are troubling signs. The apartment on the other side of the door smells of something very old and very slow.” And the other parents both sport shining black buttons where their eyes should be. Sitting on a dish on the kitchen table is a spool of black thread, a long needle and two large black buttons for Coraline.

Having entered the mirror image world, Coraline finds it is not so easy to escape the clingy clutches of her Other Mother, who gradually begins to drop the pretence of benevolence. The little girl returns to her real apartment, only to find her true parents missing.

Eventually she realizes she must return and confront the Other Mother, to best her in a test of wills, in order to restore her world’s order.

Coraline is already on the New York Times’s best-seller list of children’s chapter books, and it’s easy to see why. Gaiman, already a cult figure among comic book readers for his Sandman series, uses his well-honed skills as a spinner of dark fantasy tales to chilling effect here. Illustrations by Dave McKean _ Gaiman’s long-time collaborator _ effectively paint a spooky world in which a bag of squirming beetles is considered a delicious snack.

Reviews have likened Coraline to the children’s classics Alice in Wonderland and the Chronicles of Narnia, with which it shares the theme of passing from the ordinary to the extraordinary via seemingly innocent portals.

However, Coraline is much darker than Alice, where the Queen’s threats are ignored by all. The better analogy is perhaps to The Magician’s Nephew, the first book (chronologically) in the Narnia series, where the cruel Jadis _ on whom the Other Mother might be based _ wreaks evil for its own sake.

Neil Gaiman likely doesn’t take offense at the fact that he gives lots of people the creeps. After all, he’s a bestselling author of several spine-tingling horror and fantasy novels for adults (Stardust; the Sandman comics series). Gaiman’s latest tale, Coraline (HarperCollins, July), possesses the dark, haunting appeal his fans have come to expect–except that Coraline is a book marketed to young readers.

In the novel, when Coraline makes her way through a mysterious door in her family’s apartment, she finds herself in a spooky, parallel “other” version of her life. Released earlier this month, Coraline is off to a flying start, receiving numerous starred reviews in industry journals and debuting at #10 on the New York Times children’s bestseller list the week of July 21. Of the 100,000-copy initial print run, hardcover sales have already reached nearly 75,000.

Though it’s often difficult to determine a customer breakdown, HarperCollins sales reps have been assuming that much of this initial sales push is coming from adults. “His fan base is so connected and so devoted and they were aware early on that the book was coming,” explained Rebecca Grose, senior manager of publicity at HarperCollins Children’s Books.

A recent Coraline launch event/reading at Cody’s Books in Berkeley (where Gaiman read his entire novel to the crowd) enticed more than 600 Gaiman fans, a few of whom drove cross-country, according to Grose. More exposure for the book is planned via floor displays and publisher promotions scheduled for Halloween and the holiday season. In addition, the unabridged audiobook, read by Gaiman and featuring music by the Gothic Archies (known for their funny/creepy songs on the Series of Unfortunate Events audiobooks) is moving very well with 10,000 copies in print after three trips back to press.

Coraline may be Gaiman’s first novel for young readers, but he has dipped into the children’s book pool before, with the critically acclaimed picture book The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean (a frequent Gaiman collaborator, who also did the jacket and interior illustrations for Coraline). Released by Clarkston, Ga.-based White Wolf Publishing in 1997, the book has sold nearly 20,000 copies in hardcover and close to 25,000 as a trade paperback.

Coraline, a modern fairy tale that is both fascinating and frightening, is the story of a young girl who is bored with her ordinary life and preoccupied parents. One day after her parents have disappeared, she finds a door that leads to a brick wall she goes through to the other side.

At first things seem better there, but there are another mother and father who want Coraline to stay with them. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline finds other children trapped there, and her parents too, and soon she is in a desperate battle with the witchlike other mother to save herself and the others.

Gaiman is a writer with a huge following. The English-born, U.S.-based fantasist, screen- and comicbook-writer is the author of the bestselling novel American Gods and the illustrated serial The Sandman. Now, I have to admit that I have never been among his huge following, but the premise of this novel intrigued me. A little girl passes through a secret door in her house and finds a set of parents who are just like her parents but have buttons for eyes.

Coraline (Gaiman says the name arose from a typing error, and then stuck) and her parents move into a flat in a house that has been subdivided. Downstairs live two old women, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, who claim they were famous actresses in their time. They often argue about whether they might have retired too soon.

In the flat above Coraline’s lives a crazy old man named Mr. Bobo, who is busily training mice for a mouse circus. And on the same floor as Coraline’s flat is an empty flat.

Coraline’s parents both work at home, typing away on computers in their separate offices. When she goes to them and complains of being bored, they helpfully suggest that she pester somebody else.

Coraline’s mother can only cook things like frozen fish fingers, while her father can’t cook a chicken without turning it into a recipe involving things like pastry, wine and prunes.

So when Coraline passes through the bricked-over doorway and into the flat that is like a mirror image of her own, it seems wonderful to find there an “other mother” who has made the most delicious roast chicken Coraline has ever tasted. All the adults from her world are there, although slightly different. Even the cat from the garden is there, but in this world he can talk. When Coraline remarks that they could be friends, he replies (cattily, of course), “We could be rare specimens of an exotic breed of African dancing elephants. But we’re not.”

All of this seems wonderful to Coraline, as does the room filled with toys, the likes of which she has never seen before. But the other mother has those creepy button eyes, and her teeth are just a little too long and her nails a little too sharp and pointy. So, much as she wants Coraline to stay “for ever and always,” and even though she says having buttons sewn over her eyes really won’t hurt, Coraline just wants to go home.

But when she does make it safely back to her own world, her parents have vanished and none of the adults seem prepared to do anything about it. And so, of course, it falls to Coraline to rescue her parents. In the course of doing so, she is also called upon to save the souls of two long-dead children and one centuries-old fairy — a large task for a girl of probably six or seven years. But since this is a fairy tale, I think we all know how things work out. Gaiman uses as an epigraph a quotation from G.K. Chesterton, “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

I’ve spent so long telling you what Coraline is about that I hardly have space to describe the plans for a movie or the marathon readings Gaiman has been giving, where he actually reads the whole book. This is the sort of thing that people who attend readings generally fear, but in this case it sounds like it could be a treat. You can read excerpts or let Gaiman read the book to you at www.mousecircus.com.

It doesn’t take long, when discussing novels about young girls accidentally passing into strange new worlds, for three words to come up: “Alice in Wonderland.” This is not Alice in Wonderland, nor is it a new, darker Alice in Wonderland. But it is very good.

I’ve been trying to work out what it is that makes a book ostensibly written for children (Gaiman started this book for his elder daughter, who is now 17, and finished it for his second daughter, who is six) appealing to adults.