Sony is bringing an adaptation of the YA fantasy novel A Darker Shade of Magic to the big screen.
The studio has won a bidding war and is currently in negotiations to pick up the rights to Victoria Schwab’s fantasy series, whose first book, A Darker Shade of Magic, was published in February 2015 and followed by A Gathering of Shadows in 2016 and A Conjuring of Light, which was just published in February of this year.
The studio beat out Fox 2000 and eOne as well as Lionsgate, according to THR.
Gerard Butler is on board to produce the adaptation along with Alan Siegel and Danielle Robinson. Neal Moritz, who has a first-look deal at Sony, will produce also, as will Schwab herself.
The synopsis for the first book reads as follows:
Kell is one of the last Travelers-magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes, connected by one magical city.
There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad king-George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered-and where Kell was raised alongside Rhys Maresh, the rougish heir to a flourishing empire. White London-a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.
Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, ambassador of the Maresh empire, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.
Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.
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