David Lindsay-Abaire has had an odd but interesting career. On the one hand he’s a serious-minded playwright who won the Pulitzer Prixe for Rabbit Hole, about a couple coming to terms with the death of their child (a Nicole Kidman starring film version is due next year), but on the other he writes children’s films such as Robots and Inkheart, and he also scored a Tony nomination for writing the book for Shrek The Musical.
He’s now planning to continue the animated theme as he signed up to write the screenplay for Dreamwork’s Animation’s adaptation of William Joyce’s upcoming book series, The Guardians. The illustratrated tomes are about a group of iconic figures, including Santa Claus, Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny and the Man in the Moon, who are sworn to protect children from the forces of evil. While eahh book will concentrate on an individual Guardian, it sounds like the film will have a more superhero team angle. The CGI movie will be co-directed by Joyce and Peter Ramsay.
Abaire has also been busy on the screenplay for Spider-man 4, so it seems we’ll see a lot more of his work in the future.