Children of Blood and Bone moves from Lucasfilm to Paramount

During Disney’s Investor Day back in December 2020, Lucasfilm revealed a slew of projects, mostly revolving around Star Wars, but they also announced an adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s young adult fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone. This was exciting because it was one of the few original projects the studio was developing, but we haven’t heard all that much about it and there seems there’s a good reason why that is.

According to Deadline, Children of Blood and Bone is no longer in development at Lucasfilm as it has found a new home at Paramount. The novel, the first in a trilogy, deals with a woman blessed with magical powers living in a oppressive country who teams up with a princess in order to bring the regime down. “Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone has not only become a phenomenon in the YA world, it has transformed every expectation of what world-building fantasy can be,” said Co-President of Paramount Pictures Motion Group Daria Cercek. “It’s with enormous pride that our studio — along with Tomi and our partners Wyck, Marty and Karen — set out to bring this franchise to life on the big screen. With its thought-provoking and timely themes, we know that this story will resonate with a global audience.”

As for why Lucasfilm let Children of Blood and Bone go, THR says that although Kathleen Kennedy had taken an interest in the project, the studio has turned most of their focus to the various Star Wars series they have in development. Author Tomi Adeyemi also wasn’t happy with how slow development was taking and felt as though she should be the one to write the script, something Lucasfilm wasn’t willing to do. After Lucasfilm allowed the rights to lapse, multiple studios were in the mix to scoop the project up, but Paramount came out the winner by offering Adeyemi a seven-figure screenwriting guarantee as well as creative influence. It doesn’t sound like we can expect Lucasfilm to develop any other original properties in the near future as THR’s sources say that they have “decidedly shifted away from developing projects that are new” in favour of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the upcoming Willow series.