P.J. Hogan Hired To Direct Comic Book Adaptation Bone

P.J. Hogan isn't typically the guy you think of when talking about directors for potential comic book movies. Over the course of his career, Hogan has largely been known for female-centric rom-coms like My Best Friend's Wedding, Muriel's Wedding and, his most recent, Confessions of A Shopaholic. As a result, the newest story out of THR will cause a lot of people to scratch their heads in wonder.

The trade has learned that Hogan is now attached to direct Bone, a movie based on the comics by Jeff Smith. Furthermore, the report says that Patrick Sean Smith, who is best known for creating the ABC Family series Greek, has been hired to pen the script. Running from 1991 to 2004, the story followed three cousins (Fone, Phoney and Smiley Bone) who are run out of their hometown and must survive a mysterious valley that is being threatened by a dangerous, ethereal Lord of the Locusts. The animated film is being made by Animal Logic, which is the same company that did the animation for George Miller's Happy Feet Two and Zack Snyder's Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. It's expected that Hogan will do a polish of the script after Smith has completed his work.

Bone was one of my favorite comics growing up, and while I like the prospect of them making a movie from Jeff Smith's work, I would honestly be devastated if they do a poor job of it. As mentioned earlier, Hogan is an extremely odd choice for this project, but the involvement of Animal Logic gives me high hopes as they are one of the best animation studios around. I have the feeling that there are going to be a lot of ups and downs with this project as it moves through development.

Eric Eisenberg
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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.