Current Events > Animorphs is getting a movie

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.cnet.com/news/animorphs-is-finally-getting-a-movie-based-on-the-90s-book-series/

A live-action Animorphs movie based on the book series from the '90s is finally in the works, Picturestart revealed Thursday. It's being co-developed alongside Scholastic, which published K. A. Applegate's series.
"Animorphs has found the perfect home," Applegate tweeted.
The Animorphs book series, which kicked off in 1996, follows five teenagers and an adolescent alien -- Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco and Ax -- who have all been given the power to morph into any animal they touch. Together, they lead Earth's fight against the secret invasion of a brain-dwelling parasite alien species called the Yeerks.
"The central themes of Animorphs have resonated strongly with kids for more than two decades," Iole Lucchese, Scholastic EVP, said in a statement. "The time is right for a feature film that takes this captivating sci-fi adventure to another level for audiences today."
There were 54 books in the main series, as well as multiple special editions like The Andalite Chronicles, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, four Megamorphs books and even two choose-your-own-adventure novels called Alternamorphs. (Obviously the best book was the one set in the time of the dinosaurs.) You can read all of them for free online right now thanks to Reddit's Animorphs community.
It's unknown at this point what books will covered in the movie.
Erik Feig, Picturestart CEO, called the series "iconic."
"These books have a deservedly deep bench of passionate fans, ourselves included," Feig added. "We hope to make Katherine Applegate and her co-author, Michael Grant, proud as we bring Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias to life for a new generation."
Animorphs, which was also adapted as a TV series of the same name in the '90s, has been lauded for its unflinchingly dark depiction of war and its aftermath in terms of both physical and mental impact. It's also been trending recently as fans recommend reading Animorphs instead of Harry Potter in the wake of backlash over JK Rowling's transgender comments.

Wut

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could lead to a revival of the franchise. I heard it never really got a true proper ending in the books. they just kinda stopped

A little late isn't it?

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Id like movies made for the various chronicles books. For the series proper, a movie wouldnt work as well.

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Zikten posted...

could lead to a revival of the franchise. I heard it never really got a true proper ending in the books. they just kinda stopped

It had a true ending. They went to the yeerk ship and destroyed it, along with Visser One, and Rachel sacrificed herself.

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I loved this series as a kid. Interesting to see it resurfacing due to the J.K. Rowling stuff.

Zikten posted...

could lead to a revival of the franchise. I heard it never really got a true proper ending in the books. they just kinda stopped

It had a proper ending to the Yeerk invasion, but left a major cliffhanger about a new big bad.
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I've never heard of Picturestart. They don't have a Wikipedia page and their website is causing me physical discomfort by looking at it.
https://www.picturestart.com/

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I hope they keep the morphing animation from the show.

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I very much doubt theyll get this right. Animorphs was insanely violent, but did a great job of portraying that violence as terrifying and awful, necessary though it was.

Bullet_Wing posted...

I think he meant the book after that. Left things very open ended.

The rest of them ram their ship into the Blade ship piloted by the now possessed Aximili who is "The One" or something like that. That's how the series ends. With the brand new introduction of a major Big Bad, and a suicidal charge into his ship that we don't know even worked.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that.

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Interesting. I don't think movies are the right choice medium for an adaptation of animorphs, it should be a TV series, just a better one than the one we got.

There's also a graphic novel of the first book in the works by the way.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083W1LYY6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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Finally.

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With the amount of books and stories they could tell, I'd prefer a tv series . Obviously they already tried this but I'm not talking about a kids Nickelodeon show. More along the lines of a show about the kids going to war kinda like how Stranger Things is a serious show about kids. And it can get darker as the seasons go on like the books did.

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Give us an Andalite Chronicles movie IMO. I reread about half of the series as an adult, and this one stood out as amazing.

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This is the best news I've heard all year

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Cool. Hopefully they leave "progressive" stuff out of it.

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AlCalavicci posted...

With the amount of books and stories they could tell, I'd prefer a tv series . Obviously they already tried this but I'm not talking about a kids Nickelodeon show. More along the lines of a show about the kids going to war kinda like how Stranger Things is a serious show about kids. And it can get darker as the seasons go on like the books did.

Man the books start off dark. We're talking about dismemberment of the protagonists, enslavement of their family/friends, lots of trauma and crisis of identity, a mental breadown and suicide attempt, broken families, and this is the first five books.

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onedarksoul posted...

Cool. Hopefully they leave "progressive" stuff out of it.

I mean they had a furry and a lesbian iirc

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I can't wait to see how they mess it up lol
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I don't count the andalite as a furry, he was an alien I believe. Don't remember the lesbian, if that was there, thats because the writer did a good job and didn't shoehorn it in, like today's media is wont to do.

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PMarth2002 posted...

Man the books start off dark. We're talking about dismemberment of the protagonists, enslavement of their family/friends, lots of trauma and crisis of identity, a mental breadown and suicide attempt, broken families, and this is the first five books.

Yeah, true. The whole series is pretty dark. I'd really be interested in seeing a committed adaptation of it, rather than a 1.5 hr movie that tells the origin and then wondering if we'll get more stories with a new movie a few years later

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Reminder K.A. Applegate is pretty much the anti-J.K. Rowling
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Jesus, I didn't realize there were over 50 damn books.

I loved the ones I read in elementary school though.

And flipping through the pages to make the character on the bottom of the page morph was cool

And yeah with that much source material it really should be like a Netflix series.

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*smiles crazily and charges forward*

Roll credits

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Tired-Insomniac posted...

Jesus, I didn't realize there were over 50 damn books.

I loved the ones I read in elementary school though.

And flipping through the pages to make the character on the bottom of the page morph was cool

And yeah with that much source material it really should be like a Netflix series.

IIRC, everything from after the David arc right up to the beginning of the end(the last few books) was ghost-written and is more or less filler.

Basically, you could probably make it a trilogy, with the second film containing the David arc and then wrap it up in movie 3. Make it a lean, mean psycho-action type deal. You would naturally cut out most of the Ellimist-Crayak metaplot, because it works fine in a book series but would be basically the equivalent of slamming on the brakes in a movie. They should try to avoid lengthy exposition.

Balrog0 posted...

I mean they had a furry and a lesbian iirc

Closest I can think of for furry is Rachel and Tobias's relationship, since he's a bird?
I don't recall a lesbian anywhere. Maybe a minor character later on?

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ngl rachel was pretty hot

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onedarksoul posted...

Cool. Hopefully they leave "progressive" stuff out of it.

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ElatedVenusaur posted...

IIRC, everything from after the David arc right up to the beginning of the end(the last few books) was ghost-written and is more or less filler.

They were still outlined by Applegate.

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PMarth2002 posted...

Closest I can think of for furry is Rachel and Tobias's relationship, since he's a bird?
I don't recall a lesbian anywhere. Maybe a minor character later on?

I mean, we're talking about a book series about a white dude, his cousin, his black girlfriend, his Latino best friend, and the orphaned hanger-on nerd (and the wacky alien whose big brother was a war hero and also the orphan's real Dad! )
So it was always pretty SJW, sorry righties!

Remember when Jake became a controller?
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ElatedVenusaur posted...

I mean, we're talking about a book series about a white dude, his cousin, his black girlfriend, his Latino best friend, and the orphaned hanger-on nerd (and the wacky alien whose big brother was a war hero and also the orphan's real Dad! )
So it was always pretty SJW, sorry righties!

Jake and rachel apparently come from jewish families too.

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ModLogic posted...

ngl rachel was pretty hot

https://imgur.com/vl4Kkph

Oh yeah. Also, Marco got freaking ripped

https://imgur.com/39RGigv

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Animorphs should be an HBO series tbh

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Mecha Sonic posted...

Animorphs should be an HBO series tbh

Does HBO do shows without sex? That's about the only place Animorphs doesn't go, since the kids are in middle school.

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WaterLink posted...

Remember when Jake became a controller?

remember when david got turned into a rat and left on an island

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Mecha Sonic posted...

remember when david got turned into a rat and left on an island

That was messed up lol

I can't remember if he returned after that or if that was his end?

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Bullet_Wing posted...

Crayak freed him, and it's heavily implied Rachel killed him after catching up with him

Right, I vaguely remember that.

I re-read all of the books like 4-5 years ago, buy by this point in the series I was reading those stories for the first time since I never completed the series as a kid.

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onedarksoul posted...

Cool. Hopefully they leave "progressive" stuff out of it.

You're gonna be disappointed because they were always woke af.

The cliffhanger ending was fine. The arc of the main story is over, but it's showing that the Elimist still has centuries-millennia left in his war.

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Bullet_Wing posted...

Honestly the very idea of Yeerks is pretty terrifying. Imagine being trapped in your own mind, watching yourself fuck over family and friends not being able to do anything. Can't even close your eyes.

Thats always what creeped me out too. There was nothing you could do. And then when they left your brain to go recharge or whatever that was, go into the yeerk pool, you were held captive, tasting freedom for that short interim until they returned to dominate you once more.

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Zikten posted...

could lead to a revival of the franchise. I heard it never really got a true proper ending in the books. they just kinda stopped

It got a true ending

Monolith1676 posted...

A little late isn't it?

So you haven't seen all of the other remakes in all kinds of media? Okay Patrick Star.

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Bullet_Wing posted...

Honestly the very idea of Yeerks is pretty terrifying. Imagine being trapped in your own mind, watching yourself fuck over family and friends not being able to do anything. Can't even close your eyes.

onedarksoul posted...

Thats always what creeped me out too. There was nothing you could do. And then when they left your brain to go recharge or whatever that was, go into the yeerk pool, you were held captive, tasting freedom for that short interim until they returned to dominate you once more.

Now imagine that they win and a hundred years have passed and you've got billions of humans who have literally known nothing else but being a yeerk host.


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WaterLink posted...

Remember when Jake became a controller?

Book 6--that was a good one. For some reason when it first came out, my friends and I thought it wasn't as good as the first 5. When I reread the books I thought that one was great.

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