Sunday 20 July 2008

Jinxed

As it's taken me so long to get around to blogging, there's a whole broom cupboard full of Stuff That Hasn't Been Blogged About Yet. And I realise I've never told you about the telly thing. So now, here it is:

The Telly Thing

Actually you see I haven't mentioned it because I was waiting for the Telly Thing to happen. Which it hasn't. Except that a pilot was made.


No, not that sort of pilot; the sort I'm talking about is a single episode, so that one bunch of telly people can show it to another, richer and more powerful bunch of telly people, to help them decide whether they want to make all thirteen episodes or not. That was, um, six months ago. And I've just had some news (drum roll): the big, rich, powerful telly people concerned (that'll be Nickelodeon to you and me) have...

...still not decided.

I had been waiting for news of an actual decision before telling you about it, in the superstitious belief that if I mentioned it any earlier, I would jinx the whole thing. Then I realised that me, my editor and my agent would all look like this if I waited that long:


So I'm telling you about it. And hey, who knows? Perhaps talking about it will make it happen! ANYWAY, I suppose I should mention what sort of telly thing it is. Well, first of all, it's loosely based on my Lulu Baker trilogy. I say loosely, because it's not actually a dramatisation, it's a sitcom version, and they've made quite a lot of changes. Here's a publicity image:

Note the title! I wonder whether we'll have more luck if they change it? That's Lulu on the right, by the way. And the lady on the left is Aunt Cookie. No, don't go rushing to your bookshelves, trying to remind yourself of who she is; she's nowhere to be found in the books! But in the Telly Thing, she's a sort of magical chef-type lady who springs out of Lulu's recipe book.

So there you go; that's the update. I've had a lot of readers ask if a Lulu Baker movie will be made...well, this, so far, is the nearest we've got. So no Cameron Diaz or Queen Latifah yet, alas! (see my FAQs if that makes no sense to you).

I also sometimes get asked if there'll be a film of Toonhead. And I reckon you could do something really interesting with that, along the lines of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or Space Jam.



It's about time there was another live action/ cartoon animation movie, if you ask me.