What do you do in an era where your biggest name brands aren’t quite cutting it? Get new name brands, of course! That’s what Disney just did, acquiring the rights to the book series Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell. The company reportedly spent a “substantial seven figures” for the rights to the franchise and set Rundell to write screenplays for the first two movies in a planned five-film series.
Deadline reports Disney beat out both Warner Bros. and Netflix for the rights, which the company sees as something that has not just sequel potential but also chances for spinoffs, merchandise, and maybe even theme park rides.
“When I read Impossible Creatures, I knew it belonged here at Disney,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a Disney press release. “I was immediately drawn into the vibrant world Katherine imagined and the possibilities of what we could do together with this story. Written by Katherine herself, these movies are in the best of hands with our Walt Disney Studios team, and I can’t wait to see this tale brought to the screen.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be linking arms with Disney,” Rundell said. “It’s a privilege to be writing these screenplays and developing these first movies in the franchise together with Charles [Collier, producer], my team at Impossible Films, and with the exceptional team at Disney… Our ambition is to build ‘Glimouria’ and Impossible Creatures into a spectacular series of films, so that we can entertain and inspire family audiences across the world.”
So, clearly, Disney is very high on this, and there are a few reasons. One is that the company has been making “an effort to move the live-action menu beyond transfers of animated films,” according to Deadline. Those films make a lot of money (Lilo & Stitch is the only movie this year to cross $1 billion so far, for example), but they can only last for so long. There need to be new stories to tell, and Impossible Creatures might be it.
The other is that while Disney has obviously been able to lean heavily into the grosses from mega franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar movies for the past decade, the last few years haven’t seen those franchises reap the constant results the studio wants or needs. There are a few exceptions, such as Inside Out 2, but these properties are no longer a guarantee. New chances need to be taken, and that’s what’s happening here.
So what’s Impossible Creatures all about? You can probably guess. It’s about kids who work together to save creatures in a magical world. The first book, Impossible Creatures, was published in 2023, and its sequel, The Poisoned King, came out last month. To date, they’ve sold around a million copies and won Rundell multiple awards. She’s planning three more books in the main storyline, with spinoffs and more also on the table.
Deadline calls the franchise “a publishing phenomenon on the order of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Twilight Saga.” Which we’re going to have to go ahead and disagree with. Surely it’s successful and Disney might have a winner on its hands, but we’re sure some of us (this writer included) just heard about this for the first time today. So, we are skeptical that we’re going to get five films, theme park rides, and more from this, but if anyone can make it happen, it’s Disney.
Had you heard of Impossible Creatures before today? Do you like it? Did Disney make the right move here? Let us know below.