Harold and the Purple Crayon is a beloved children’s book written and illustrated by Crockett Johnson about a curious four-year-old boy with a magic purple crayon that has the power to make anything he draws become real. Hollywood has been attempting to bring the story to the big screen for decades, and it seems that time has finally arrived. Sony Pictures has dropped a pair of posters for the live-action adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon, which stars Zachary Levi.
As you might be aware, Zachary Levi is not a four-year-old boy, so the movie is obviously switching up the story somewhat. Sony hasn’t released an official plot synopsis yet, but here’s my prediction: A now grown-up Harold has mostly forgotten about his magical purple crayon, believing it was a product of his young imagination. But when Harold finds himself in debt to the mob, he discovers that his purple crayon is actually real and might be his only way out. Some of that might not be right…
In addition to Zachary Levi, Harold and the Purple Crayon also stars Lil Rey Howery, Zooey Deschanel, Jemaine Clement, Ravi Patel, Camille Guaty, Tanya Reynolds, and Pete Gardner. The film marks the live-action directorial debut of Carlos Saldanha, who helmed a variety of animated movies for Blue Sky Studios, including Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Rio, Rio 2, and Ferdinand.
As I mentioned before, Hollywood has been attempting to bring the story to the big screen for quite some time, going all the way back to 1992 when Where the Wild Things Are writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak acquired the rights. The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick was attached to direct but ultimately departed to helm James and the Giant Peach. Spike Jonze then boarded the project with the intention of developing it as a live-action/animated hybrid, but he left as well. The project then transformed into a CGI-animated movie almost fifteen years ago but couldn’t get off the ground. We did get a short-lived animated series almost twenty-five years ago narrated by Sharon Stone for HBO Family.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is set to hit theaters on August 2nd, so we should be getting a trailer for the movie sometime soon.