Hollywood Comes to Bologna

by Diane Roback, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/29/2006

Film agents and scouts have been attending Bologna for years, but in fairly small numbers. This year critical mass seems to have been reached. Jean Feiwel, in her new role as senior v-p and publisher at Holtzbrinck, commented on the "ubiquitous nature" of the film people at the fair. "They're much more of a presence this year," concurred Rebecca Mancini, children's rights director at Houghton Mifflin. "No one wants to be missing out on something."

As more children's properties continue to be optioned and developed into movies, the low-hanging fruit has long been picked, and Hollywood is eager to hear about new projects as early as possible. Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham remarked that the entire arena of film rights has changed dramatically in recent years. The film people "want to be in early and they want to commit," he said. "Interest is huge."

Spotted in the aisles, and evidence of the range of companies in attendance: Damon Ross of Nickelodeon Movies, Chris Kuser of DreamWorks, Debbie Kovacs of Walden Media, Riley Ellis at Fox, Eddie Gamarra of The Gotham Group, Ken Olshansky at Granada Kids, Lola Bubbosh at Disney, Fiona Kenshole of Vinton Studios, Stephen Moore from the Paul Kohner Agency, Ramsey Naito from Cartoon Network and Jason Lust at Henson.

Valerie Cates, executive story editor for Random House Films, is a Bologna first-timer, searching for properties for Random's new venture, which launched in November. Specifically, she's looking for older, "edgier" YA, ages 14 and up, for Focus Films' Rogue Pictures division. The properties she's looking for have to be published by Random House or any of its international operations, though RHF will buy the option just as any studio would. Two films have been optioned so far, but no children's title yet.

It's Riley Ellis's fourth Bologna, and she says she's the only book scout for children's books in Hollywood. "Other scouts are for animation, and other scouts are adult and children's; I'm live-action and I'm children's only." Ellis, who scouts for all of Fox's film divisions, doesn't have a particular kind of story or book she's looking for, preferring to cast a wide net. Fox films in release, in development or under option include Aquamarine, Eragon, Cry of the Icemark, The Lightning Thief, Wolf Brother, and R.L. Stine's Rotten School; last week Ellis optioned Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. "It's a little disconcerting when I find out how many Hollywood people are coming here, but a little competition can't hurt," she said. "Narnia was a huge boost for people in our business. If you do it right, people will come."

For Debbie Kovacs at Walden, which inked a joint venture deal with Penguin just before the fair, nothing replaces being able to sit down and talk face to face with the people making and selling the books, as she can do in Bologna. "I want to see what the trends are, and I really enjoy being in a place where it's all children's books," she said. Kovacs tells publishers to "keep your dark stuff in your drawer," though she said she is "open to just about anything else. I can't tell you what it is ahead of time, but I know it when something sparks."

Lola Bubbosh, who joined Disney from Miramax after the two companies split last year, said she's both trying to build relationships among the various Disney divisions internationally, as well as locate new properties. "I'm just scanning and scanning," she said. "I'm the person who sits in the boat for two weeks and waits for the big fish." She also acts as an acquiring editor for Disney Books for Children, and will help develop her properties into film. And as part of Disney, she said, a property she buys can become a book, a film, a graphic novel, a video game, etc. "It's a huge merchandising opportunity."

The newest acquisition for Fiona Kenshole at Vinton is Alan Snow's forthcoming Here Be Monsters!, a 500-page debut novel that the author has also illustrated. As Kenshole termed it, "It's Monty Python for kids --an amazing and fresh world." Other studios were in serious contention for film rights, she said, "but we snuck in and got it." Having worked on both sides of the aisle, Kenshole offered the observation that "film paranoia is much worse than book publishing paranoia."

Since increasingly it's the agents who control film rights these days, not the publishers, there was plenty of film activity in the agents' center. The Gotham Group's Eddie Gamarra said that one of his focuses at Bologna is "making alliances with other agents who don't have a film agent." It was his first fair, and he was spending time "educating myself about how publishing works" as well as "getting a sense of publishers' knowledge base about film," saying that each side could learn from the other. One optioned property he's hoping will soon get a green light: The Spiderwick Chronicles, from Nickelodeon and Paramount.

Another first-timer, Ken Olshansky at Granada Kids, which specializes in live-action material, was scouting properties that might move the company more into animation and into the preschool market. So he was checking out picture books, and "finding amazing things." As a fair, he said, Bologna "has been great. It's a real opportunity to see a lot of good material in a short period of time."