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While the world waits patiently for J.K. Rowling to finish her first post-Potter project (an adult novel entitled Casual Vacancy) and to get started on that Harry Potter encyclopedia she’s been promising us for about a decade, her contemporary Stephenie Meyer is wasting no time keeping the creative juices flowing and her name on movie teaser posters.

 

Last month, we featured the first creepy-cool teaser trailer for Meyer’s next big project, the film adaptation of her post-Twilight novel, The Host, which focuses on the inner struggle between a human girl and her alien captive. The film, which is currently in production, has plenty of built-in buzz, naturally, thanks to all the Twihards out there. Despite that, however, the story actually sounds quite intriguing – a far cry from the sometimes implausible vampire-human-werewolf love triangle that has both mesmerized and infuriated the pop culture consciousness over the last few years.

 

But Meyer is not stopping there. She seems to be looking to add Super Producer to her resume. Currently turning her attention to other people’s works, Meyer is optioning a 38-year-old YA novel entitled Dark a Dark Hall to produce as a film. The dark tale focuses on the Blackwood Boarding School and, in particular, a new student named Kit Gordy who is thrust into the school’s mysterious world and equally enigmatic students, and must solve the many riddles the school possesses before some unspoken tragedy befalls it. Sounds pretty cool, and the teen angst aspect is certainly Meyer’s milieu. Only this time, she won’t have to bear the responsibility for being the content’s original creator – just the person who brings it to life.

 

It also bears mentioning that this isn’t Meyer’s only foray into strictly-producer territory. As we speak, a film called Austenland is in post-production. The Keri Russell-starring flick is a breezy rom-com about a woman who seeks Mr. Right at a Jane Austen theme park. Hmm. Well, we can see where Stephenie might be drawn to slightly corny material such as this. Still, we think we'll pass on this one.

 

However, I’m greatly intrigued by these other post-Twilight ventures that Meyer has in the works. I’m glad to see her parlay all this newfound success into more and more compelling projects. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?

 

Your move, E.L. James.

 

 

- Katie Marzullo, YH Staff Editor

katie@younghollywood.com