‘Danny and the Dinosaur’ Movie in the Works

Not all fictional dinosaurs maul humans. The dinosaur in Syd Hoff’s beloved 1958 children’s book Danny and the Dinosaur certainly did not. Legendary Entertainment and HarperCollins Productions will show how fun it can be to go on a journey with a dinosaur by bringing the book to the big screen.

HarperCollins Productions optioned the screen rights to the book from the Authors Guild Foundation, which holds the rights with the Anti-Defamation League Foundation, ORT America Inc., and the United Negro College Fund reports Deadline. Legendary is teaming up with HarperCollins to produce the film. No talent is attached to the project yet.

Danny and the Dinosaur is a picture book first published by HarperCollins in 1958. The book tells the story of Danny, who meets a dinosaur at a museum. Rather than biting his arm off or threatening him as dinosaurs do in other media, the dinosaur offers to take Danny on adventures through his city. Hoff wrote and illustrated six sequels, published between 1995 and 2017. The books sold a combined 11 million copies in 12 languages. A few of the sequels were published after Hoff’s death in May 2004 at age 91.

It’s unclear how Danny and the Dinosaur will be brought to the big screen. While it would be exciting to see a traditionally-animated film that honors Huff’s work, Legendary could go with the CGI/live-action hybrid route. Paramount, eOne, and Scholastic went with that method for the 2021 Clifford the Big Red Dog film, which was such a hit that a sequel is in development.

HarperCollins Productions is the in-house production company for HarperCollins. The studio produces film and television projects based on the publisher’s major franchises. It has worked on Carmen Sandiego with Netflix and Pretzel and the Puppies with Apple TV+.

Legendary is better known for its work with Warner Bros. on blockbusters like Dune, Godzilla vs. Kong, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, and Man of Steel. The studio also teamed up with Universal Pictures on the Jurassic World franchise, Skyscraper, and Pacific Rim: Uprising. It also worked with Netflix on the Enola Holmes movies. Legendary’s upcoming projects include Dune: Part Two, more Godzilla movies, and Sony’s The Machine.