Disney has gone on a bit of a shopping spree this week, picking up a couple of titles to add to their development slate.
First up, the studio has acquired the rights to Australian novelist Matthew Reilly‘s “Hover Car Racer” with plans to turn it into a 3D film simply titled, “Hovercar.” The story follows “a hovercar racer tasked with escorting an informant to safety as the two come under fire from corrupt government operatives.” We presume some sexy airborne battles ensue. Plans call to turn it into a tentpole film with merchandise tie-ins, which certainly fits into the studio’s current modus operandi. No word yet on when this one might get in front of cameras but it is being worked on.
Also in the works is “Tiki,” based on a spec script from Ahmet Zappa and Michael Wilson. The former is quickly making a name for himself in Hollywood having penned the screenplay for the upcoming Peter Hedges film, “The Odd Life Of Timothy Green” and with his “Monster Witness Relocation Program” in development with Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment. The film is a family adventure story — which may or may not be based on or inspired by the Enchanted Tiki Room (our guess is that it is) — “set in Hawaii and takes in the culture’s rich reserve of unique gods, embodied by wooden masks and engravings, as well as ghost stories.”
That one is in early stages as well but clearly Disney has no plans to stop striving for continued blockbuster bucks at the box office.