Fox Animation Nabs ‘Nimona’ Adaptation With ‘Feast’ Director (Exclusive)

In a competitive situation, Fox Animation has landed the rights to Nimona, the New York Times best-selling graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson, for an adaptation to be directed by Patrick Osborne, the helmer behind the Oscar-winning animated short Feast.

Studio exec-turned-screenwriter Marc Haimes is attached to pen the script for the project, which will be produced by Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment and the company’s president of production Adam Stone.

A mashup of genres, Nimona is set in a medieval future where knights go to night clubs riding hoverboards and carrying swords and tells of a young shape-shifter who teams up with a disgraced knight in order to reclaim his honor and overthrow a corrupt regime.

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Stevenson wrote and drew Nimona as a web comic while still a student at Maryland Institute College of Art (it was even her thesis). The popularity and acclaim of the comic led to Harvey and Eisner Awards, as well as her being awarded the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize for best web comic in 2012. 

Vertigo partner John Powers Middleton will executive produce while creative exec Gabriel Chu will oversee the project for the company.

Fox executives Vanessa Morrison and Darlene Caamano Loquet will oversee the project, which is in the development stages, for the studio.

Osborne, repped by WME and Anonymous Content, directed Feast, the Oscar-winning Disney short that told a love story through the eyes of a dog. Osborne was also the head of animation for Big Hero 6 and has worked on a range of Disney projects, from Wreck-It Ralph to Paperman.

Haimes, a former DreamWorks exec, already has some animation work under his belt. He wrote Kubo and the Two Strings, Laika’s next production, which will be released in August 2016 and features the voices of Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey and Rooney Mara. The scribe, repped by WME and Grandview, also wrote the English-language adaptation of the Norwegian film Troll Hunter for Neil Marshall.

Stevenson is repped by APA, InkWell Management and attorney Matt Sugarman of Weintraub Tobin.