How many of you grew up on those goofy Choose Your Own Adventure books? You know, the kid’s books that were written in the second person that gave you choices for your character to make at the end of every few pages, allowing you to skip ahead to a certain section of the book and see how bad of a choice you made, hopefully keeping your finger on the previous page so you can go back and choose again till you took the right path that didn’t end in disappointment or death? I know I must have “read” a couple dozen of those things back in the day.
Now it’s set for a comeback, but in a much different format.
Production company Red Crown is announcing today that it’s working on TV and film adaptations of the series. It’s a tiny bit bizarre, since those are two decidedly non-interactive formats. You would think that the internet would be better for experiments like these- there are already a few Choose Your Own Adventure-type films on Youtube, for example.
Still, Red Crown is excited to reestablish the brand.
“The original author, Ray Montgomery, is a true visionary,” producer Daniela Taplin Lundberg said in a press release. ” Choose Your Own Adventure was the Harry Potter of my generation and I know there is a tremendous fanbase for the series. We are very excited to re-launch the series with the right creative team and feel it is the perfect platform for storytelling in the 21st century.”
Well, it was certainly a popular series but Harry Potter of her generation might be a tad much. You didn’t see people dressing up in costumes in midnight launches. And yes, it’s the 5th best-selling book series of all time but there were 185 books published between 1979 and 1999.
As for Red Crown, it’s a new production company that has so far optioned the Kindle-exclusive graphic novel Tumor, with Samuel Bayer attached to direct, and will go into production on Goats starring David Duchovny and Vera Farmiga later this month.
“We talked to a number of gifted producers, but we were looking for someone who grew up on the brand and understood what Choose means to its original fans,” says Publisher Shannon Gilligan. “It leads its readers to understand that anything is possible, that life really is magic if you look for it. Daniela got that totally. We are so excited to be working with her and with Dan [Crown] on this. It’s such a great brand for the digital age.”
Looks like we’ll just have to see what they have up their sleeves, as well as what kind of genre the projects would be. Those books ran the gamut of topics, after all.
For more on Choose Your Own Adventure books check out their official site.