"We will not participate further"
Does this mean they are pulling themselves out? And the project goes forward without them?
Or pulling the whole property out, and the project is dead and over? .
I bet that they're gonna tone it down to be a pre-teen friendly YA movie akin to the Nickelodeon tv show. And I'm betting that this is what Scholastic wants as they don't cater to the 30 year olds who grew up on the books. But yeah, this is a bad move.
The link they offer as a comparable "explanation" as to why they will not participate , is of
another authors experience with a studio adapting his work.
Things that author highlights -
"I understand that a decision has been made to
age the main characters .....As no one wants to see this film succeed more than I do, I hope you’ll let me share a couple of reasons why this is a bad idea "
"The script as a whole is terrible. I don’t simply mean that it deviates from the book, though certainly it does that to point of being almost
unrecognizable as the same story...
...even if you pretend the book doesn’t exist, this
script doesn’t work as a story in its own right"
"Neither do I believe you have to have
cliché crude language and gutter humor to engage a teen audience..."
"...
adding scenes and plot lines that are completely foreign to the book and make the story read like an illogical hatchet job"
Although authors need to learn, if they didn't sign for full control ( a contract no studio would give them) , they need to step away (focus on the cash they sold out for) and accept, for better or worse ,this will not be their vision.
