Disney has optioned the rights to adapt Megan Whalen Turner’s YA fantasy novel, The Thief.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brian Duffield, who recently wrote the hit streaming film, Love and Monsters will write the project. Peter Pan and Wendy & Pete’s Dragon producer Jim Whitaker will produce.
The film will be a live-action adaptation and is in early development for Disney+.
Thief is Turner’s first book in a series known as The Queen’s Thief and was first published in 1996. The book won a Newbery Honor award in 2012. Five sequels novels have since been published, The Queen of Attolia (2000), The King of Attolia (2006), A Conspiracy of Kings (2010), Thick as Thieves (2017), Return of the Thief (2020).
The book tells the story of the charismatic young man known as Gen, also known as Eugenides the thief. The boy is released from a prison by a king’s magus who then coerces him into a quest for a legendary object. The ensuing adventure then thrusts Gen into the center of political machinations, deception, and danger.