#The Borrowers Reboot Is Happening at Universal and Working Title

A big screen reboot of the little people known as The Borrowers is on its way courtesy of Universal Pictures and Working Title, who have announced that an updated feature version is now in development. Potentially at the helm is Sausage Party and The Addams Family director Conrad Verno, who is currently in talks and will be working from a screenplay by Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway writer Patrick Burleigh.

The new Borrowers project is believed to be live action and will be based on the children’s fantasy novel by the English author Mary Norton, which was first published in 1952. The story features a family of tiny people, The Borrowers, who live secretly in the walls and floors of an English house and “borrow” from the big people in order to survive. The Borrowers’ adventures were then continued in several follow-up novels, The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961), and The Borrowers Avenged (1982), which saw the tiny family leave the safety of their house and go out into the big (especially big for them), wide world.

All five Borrowers novels center on the Clock family, which is made up of the father, Pod, the mother, Homily and their daughter, Arrietty. The plots of each novel often revolve around The Borrowers’ interaction with human beings, who they refer to as “human beans”. The teenage Borrower, Arrietty Clock, is presented as the main character, who often begins relationships with Big People that end up having a chaotic effect on the lives of herself and her family, causing her parents to react with fear and worry.

This will not be the first time that the property has been adapted into live action for the big screen. The Borrowers was loosely adapted into a feature film back in 1997, and starred John Goodman, Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie, Mark Williams, Hugh Laurie, Bradley Pierce, Flora Newbigin, and Harry Potter star Tom Felton in his acting debut. Much like the source material, the movie introduced audiences to the Clock family, who find themselves in big trouble when a ruthless lawyer plans on destroying their home in order to build a complex. Living below their floorboards, The Borrowers vow to save the house, and head-off on an adventure far beyond the safety of their home.

The Borrowers received generally positive reviews upon its release, and while it did not light up the box office, the movie was nominated for Best British Film in the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards that year. The 1997 effort is far from the only attempt at bringing The Borrowersto life though, with the little family that could also the subject of a television adaptation in 1973, another television series in 1992, and made-for-TV movie in 2011 starring Stephen Fry, Christopher Eccleston and Victoria Wood.

Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are producing The Borrowers reboot, with Alexandra Loewy, president of U.S. Film for Working Title, set to oversee development on the project on behalf of Working Title along with SEVP of Production Erik Baiers and VP Production Lexi Barta on behalf of Universal. This comes to us courtesy of Deadline.