90s kids rejoice; Scholastic Entertainment developing Animorphs feature-film

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Remember Animorphs? Well, they're back, in feature-film form! The series of YA novels by K.A. Applegate revolved around five teenagers, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias, who had the ability to morph into any animal they touched and used their powers to fight a secret alien invasion of Earth. The series spanned over 50 novels from 1996 to 2001 and were hugely popular during their day, and now THR has reported that Scholastic Entertainment will be partnering with Erik Feig's Picturestart banner to develop a feature-film based on the franchise.

"The central themes of Animorphs have resonated strongly with kids for more than two decades, and the time is right for a feature film that takes this captivating sci-fi adventure to another level for audiences today," said Scholastic Entertainment President and Chief Strategy Officer Iole Lucchese, who is also aboard as a producer. "Picturestart has an incredible track record of success, and Erik and his team are the perfect partners to help bring this exciting new series based on the adventure-packed books to movie screens." Picturestart's Erik Feig added, "We couldn't be more excited to work with Scholastic to adapt Animorphs, an iconic book series with a wildly unique combination of exciting, witty, outlandish and grounded elements that feel all too relevant for our times. We know these books have a deservedly deep bench of passionate fans — ourselves included— and we hope to make Katherine Applegate and her co-author, Michael Grant, proud as we bring Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias to life for a new generation." In addition to the feature-film, Scholastic is also planning to launch a graphic-novel adaptation of the Animorphs series on October 6th. While this will be the Animorphs first time on the big-screen, the series did spawn a Canadian-produced TV series which ran for two seasons from 1998-2000.

Although I definitely remember Animorphs during their heyday (especially during those Scholastic Book Fair's in Elementary school), I never actually read them, so I can't speak to their quality. However, I'm sure there are more than a few of you out there who are quite excited by this news.