20th Century Fox is getting serious about bringing Neil Gaiman’s children’s fantasy novel Fortunately, the Milk to the big screen, as today, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that The World’s End director Edgar Wright and Johnny Deep are in line to direct and star.
Still in an embryonic state, THR notes that Flight of the Conchords scribe Bret McKenzie is attached to pen the script. Indeed, McKenzie earned industry-wide recognition for his work on The Muppets in 2011, bagging himself an Oscar in the process for the film’s score. Remaining in a similar wheelhouse, Gaiman’s Fortunately, the Milk hit bookshelves in September of last year, charting the whimsical tale of a wide-eyed father, who makes a routine trip to the shops to purchase milk, only to return to his son with tales of a grand adventure.
Offering an extraordinary spin on something that is decidedly ordinary, 20th Century Fox are on the verge of picking up Fortunately, the Milk for distribution. Furthermore, it’s unclear at this stage whether Depp – hot off his return to form in gangster flick Black Mass – would join the cast as the father or Professor Steg, the time-travelling stegosaurus.
Set to tread the line between live-action and animation, Fox’s rendition of Fortunately, the Milk certainly harbors a lot of potential on paper, not lest because of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed source material. Best known for the likes of Sandman, Stardust, and American Gods, the award-winning scribe is about as bankable as they come, and we’ll keep you updated on the status of this new adaptation as it develops.
Keen to put his Ant-Man woes firmly behind him, Fortunately, the Milk has the potential to be Edgar Wright’s second film in production, now that the director has also set up Baby Driver with Ansel Elgort, Jamie Foxx, Lily James and, more recently, Jon Hamm.
