Sure, the Discworld books in general were great reading material for children—I devoured them as a kid and I turned out...reasonably okay-ish, I guess—but The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the 28th in Terry Pratchett’s beloved fantasy series, was the first he wrote specifically for children. And now, it’s getting an animated adaptation.
Variety reports that Ulysses Filmproduktion and Cantilever Media have tapped director Toby Genkel to direct the animated adaptation. Terry Rossio, known for his screenwriting involvement in the original Aladdin, Shrek, and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series—but also more recently for attempting to equate describing someone as anti-vax to describing them as the n-word, while dropping that particularly awful word-bomb in the process!—has written the screenplay.
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, first released in 2001, was essentially a Discworld-ian parody of classic folk tales. The novel followed the titular Maurice, a street-smart sentient cat, and his horde of talking rats, and a young boy named Keith, as they venture to the town of Bad Blintz in the hope of conning it by basically re-enacting the Pied Piper tale—a rat infestation magically dealt with by Keith’s flute-playing. But when the group reached Bad Blintz, they uncover a sinister plot by the town’s rat catchers that sends them on a wild adventure beyond simply conning the hapless residents out of some money.
We’ll bring you more on the plans for The Amazing Maurice as we learn them.
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