ElfQuest Gets a Movie?!?

I've been a fan of Elfquest since the 5th grade. Had the books hidden in my room so my folks wouldn't flip through them and find the, er, less clothed bits.

For those of you who don't know the history, the Pini's created Elfquest after seeing that animated Lord of the Rings movie, and vowed to do fantasy animation right. Unfortunately, they couldn't afford to fund an animated movie. But they could self-publish some comic books. In fact, they are often credited with spearheading the big self-publishing craze of independent comics.

Anyway, the point is, Elfquest was always supposed to be a movie, but things always seemed to fall through. Now, it appears, Warners is serious about it. I'm damned curious to see how they plan to approach it. It's the sort of project that doesn't fit comfortably into your usual genre system. That said, after Jackson's LotR trilogy, del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth", and the good buzz I've heard in advance of "Hellboy II", maybe someone will actually do this project justice. However, we don't know how heavily the Pini's are involved, or much about who will be working on the project. But it should have trolls in it, so you know it'll be good! ;)

UPDATE: Duh! More stuff at the Elfquest page:

Our director Rawson Thurber (yes, the great great grandson of the James Thurber) is just an amazingly brilliant and wonderful young Leonardo Di Caprio look-alike - the perfect director for this film. He and his sister grew up reading EQ (can quote chapter and verse) and he has always had a deep passion for it. Now he's on the A-list! Who knew?!? Anyway, after many false starts, Rawson's just what we needed to finally push this project over the top.

There's almost nothing to say about the movie itself, yet. It will probably be a combination of CGI and live action. It will probably take about two years to make. Rawson is writing the script and producing as well as directing (a la Guillermo del Toro on Hellboy). Richard and I will be acting as consultants all the way through.

I'm shocked it won't be animation, but not that shocked. Animation that's anything but Pixar is a tough sell these days. So now we can all go crazy playing the casting game as we try to decide who should play Cutter and Skywise and the rest.