Disney+ to Adapt Megan Whalen Turner’s YA Fantasy ‘The Thief’

Disney has optioned Megan Whalen Turner’s YA fantasy novel, The Thief, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

According to the trade, Brian Duffield, who recently wrote the hit streaming film, Love and Monsters will write the project. Peter Pan and Wendy producer Jim Whitaker will produce. Disney’s live-action division is overseeing the project, which is being developed for Disney+.

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Thief, published in 1996, is the first in the Queen’s Thief series. It was a runner-up for the 1997 Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor Book. n 2012, The Thief was ranked number 13 among the Top 100 Chapter Books in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with a primarily U.S. audience. 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 (2002).

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 centre of political machinations, deception, and danger.