Ben Affleck, Disney director of a children’s fantasy

Another book, another project. Ben Affleck, which in the past has brought several novels to the cinema, from Gone baby gone ad Argo, has decided to try again to adapt a literary work for the big screen. Affleck, who struck a deal with Paramount to direct and produce The big goodbye, story of how Chinatown both came to light, he signed with Disney to adapt Keeper of the lost cities, fantasy saga written by Shannon Messenger.

However, the series of novels has nothing to do with what Affleck has done so far.

Keeper of the lost cities, which the actor will direct, produce and write, is the story – absolutely imaginative – of a telepathic twelve-year-old who, in investigating the origin of her power and the responsibilities that derive from it – ends up discovering herself alien. Sophie, small and courageous, thus stumbles upon a parallel world, born and prospered alongside the Earth. “World of the Elves,” they call it, not knowing what it means to be part of it. Sophie, like Fitz, a telepathic fifteen-year-old, believed herself a stranger to such adventures. But imminent danger convinces her to leap into the dark, leave home and embrace her true nature.

Sophie, in Shannon Messenger’s work, has accumulated nine books, the last of which was released last November. The success among the kids the novels are aimed at was immense. And Affleck found himself in charge of the first film adaptation, thus falling into a new genre. Fantasy cinema, in the sense given to it by a pre-adolescent story, is a new thing for the actor, who with Keeper of the lost cities and Disney’s support could become more than what has been known so far.