Nutcracker Screenwriter to Adapt 'The Hazel Wood' For The Big Screen

One of the season's hottest 'fairy tale novels' is heading for the big screen. You've probably heard of The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. This very recent YA release (January 30, 2018) quickly became a best-seller and had high praise from many quarters, including fairy tale aficionados. Here's a fairly concise description that we think summarizes the feel of the story and introduces the synopsis well:

The Hazel Wood is a grounded YA fantasy novel that reads as Pan’s Labyrinth meets Alice in Wonderland. Opening in modern day, the story follows teenage Alice, who lives a life on the road with her mother, incessantly pursued by bad luck. Alice’s mother has always forbidden her from having any contact with her grandmother — even banning Alice from reading her grandmother’s mysterious classic book of pitch black fairy tales, “Tales from the Hinterland.” But when Alice’s mother is kidnapped, Alice discovers that the Hinterland is not just a story, and that its strange supernatural forces lie behind her mother’s disappearance. To save her mother, Alice must journey into the Hinterland where she discovers how her own story went so wrong. (TheWrap)

Ashleigh Powell (left) and the best-selling YA novel The Hazel Wood hardcover

Ashleigh Powell, the "promising new screenwriter" who previously wrote Nutcracker and the Four Realms for Disney's upcoming movie has been attached to adapt The Hazel Wood, this time for Sony's Columbia Pictures, and looks set to spark a new wave of this genre of fantasy movies heading for the big screen. (Powell is also working on adapting the first book of The Paper Magician trilogy for Disney.) Interesting, the book caused so much buzz that the film rights were acquired even before it was released at the end of January.

The Hazel Wood does not currently have a release date.

Source: Screenrant