The Lovely Bones

Son of the Suns · Mar 28, 2006

Peter Jackson's next project will be an adaptation of the novel The Lovely Bones. While the film will certainly be smaller in scale than Jackson's most recent films, it will still contain fantasy elements, much like his earlier Heavenly Creatures.

In a recent interview, Jackson revealed that he, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have started work on the script:

Interview with Peter Jackson said:

AP: One of those projects is an adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel "The Lovely Bones." Where are you in that process now?

Jackson: We just started to work on the script. We're going through the process of discovery and imagining what the film should be, because it's a very difficult book to adapt and it's a very personal book, too. ... It's one of the periods of filmmaking that I really love the most, in which Fran Walsh (Jackson's wife) and Philippa Boyens ? I'm writing the script with them ? and myself, we're sitting down, we're talking about what the possibilities are, what the ideas are, what the story is about, how we can show that ... We're just in the middle of the really fun creative part. It's all problem solving, really.
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He also goes on to mention that the film will probably not feature Andy Serkis in a motion capture suit, although he doesn't rule out the possibility of him being in the film.

So, what do you all think of this upcoming project? For those who have read the book, please use highlight code to hide spoilers.

Son of the Suns · Apr 4, 2006

If the reaction to this thread is any indication, PJ better have a backup plan involving The Hobbit.

Rebel_Padawan · Apr 4, 2006

Is there anywhere I can read a summary of what the book is about?

Son of the Suns · Apr 4, 2006

Here's Amazon.com's review of the novel (possible spoilers):

Amazon.com said:

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.

Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue."

The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons
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The Lovely Bones

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