The movie rights to Daughter of Smoke & Bone were won by Universal back in 2011, and now they’ve finally hired a screenwriter, which is always a good sign for the movie-making process.

Some movement is finally taking place on Universal’s adaptation of author Laini Taylor’s popular YA fantasy novel Daughter of Smoke & Bone.  The studio bought the rights to the book back in December of 2011 after an intense bidding war, but we haven’t heard anything about the project since.  Now Heat Vision reports that Stuart Beattie (Collateral, 30 Days of Night) has been tapped to write the script for the feature film adaptation, with Joe Roth (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman) on board to produce.  The story centers on a 17-year-old art student whose father sends her all over the world collecting human teeth for a mysterious purpose.  The young woman realizes that she’s part of an ancient struggle between angels and demons, and finds herself in a love affair with a warrior angel (as one does).

As fans, we can only hope that those involved will become greater than their past works to make this screen adaptation come to life in a way that both fans and non-readers of the book can enjoy.  As is always the case, it’s been touch and go with some book-to-movie adaptations, and this book is certainly not immune to that.  There’s a lot of fantasy elements in this that can tend to overpower the storyline, so the balance has to be there.  Let’s hope the Stuart can work that out.

via Collider.