Travis Knight To Direct Animated Adaptation Of Susanna Clarke’s Bestseller ‘Piranesi’ For Laika
Travis Knight Austin Hargrave
Laika, the renowned Oregon animation studio founded by Travis Knight, has acquired the internationally bestselling fantasy novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, enlisting Knight to direct an animated feature adaptation.
The film will be the third Knight directs for the studio, on the heels of 2016’s Oscar-nominated Kubo and the Two Strings and the upcoming Wildwood, based on the fantasy novels by Colin Meloy, which features the voices of Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Mahershala Ali and more.
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Awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021, Piranesi is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller with over four million copies sold. Set in a dreamlike alternative reality, the book tells the story of Piranesi, whose house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls, an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house — a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Stated Knight, “Piranesi is a treasure, and very dear to me. As a filmmaker, I can scarcely imagine a more joyful experience than wandering through the worlds Susanna dreamed into being. She’s one of my all-time favorite authors, and with Piranesi, Susanna has created a beautiful, devastating and ultimately life-affirming work of art. I’m humbled that she chose LAIKA as her home.”
Added Clarke, in a statement on the adaptation, “Animation is one of my favourite things. I’ve been inspired by so many animated movies; and LAIKA has produced such extraordinary work — movies like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, full of beauty and wonder and weirdness. I’m thrilled that Piranesi has found a home with them and I can’t wait to see what they do.”
Formerly an editor at Simon and Schuster’s Cambridge office, Clarke is otherwise best known for her Hugo Award-winning debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, as well as assorted short stories and novellas, which she’s published in U.S. anthologies. One, The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse, first appeared in a limited-edition, illustrated chapbook from Green Man Press. Another, Mr. Simonelli or The Fairy Widower, was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award in 2001.
After debuting Laika’s Kubo in 2016, Knight went on to direct Paramount’s live-action Transformers film Bumblebee, starring Hailee Steinfeld, which grossed over $467 million worldwide. Among his other upcoming projects is Masters of the Universe, a project with a long history of development at multiple studios that has gathered momentum at Amazon MGM, recently signing Nicholas Galitzine to star as He-Man.
While Laika has begun working in live-action in recent years, the company is best known for its groundbreaking work on the stop-motion features Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link, each of which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Set to release Wildwood in 2025, the company is currently developing the animated feature The Night Gardener, based on an original idea from Ozark‘s Bill Dubuque, as well as a live-action adaptation of the action thriller novel Seventeen from screenwriter John Brownlow.
Clarke is represented by Curtis Brown Group in the UK; Knight by CAA.