The film rights to Karen Marie Moning’s five-book “Fever” series have shifted over to DreamWorks as the studio seeks a fantasy franchise that could mirror the creative and financial successes of Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings films or the upcoming Hunger Games adaptations.
Variety reports that the feature film rights previously had been set up at Fox’s New Regency arm. The stories, which started with Moning’s 2006 novel Darkfever, follow protagonist MacKayla Lane who journeys to Ireland in search of the person who murdered her sister. Once on the Emerald Isle, Lane uncovers a bizarre land filled with dark forces presided over by the evil Jericho. Her quest involves an alpha Fae who has the power to make sex a crippling addiction for women and a Dark Book known as the Sinsar Dubh, which that gives extreme power to whomever is holding it.
Darkfever sounds like fan fiction taken to extremes, with an adult edge missing from, say, The Twilight Saga. The books covers make it looks like a late-night Skin-emax offering. If the material has such potential, I’m curious why Fox didn’t move forward on it. Moning’s books were best-sellers, and fantasy/sci-fi series are all the rage in Hollywood nowadays.
Variety is short on specifics in its story, outside of saying that DreamWorks plans a live-action release for the first in the Fever series. Let’s hope they commit a decent-sized budget, if they want to make Moning’s fanciful, imaginative world come to life off of the screen. I’d also be curious to see who the studio can recruit for the MacKayla role, because she immediately is going to get compared to fellow female warriors Kristen Stewart and Jennifer Lawrence. Good luck with that.
