Director Jon Favreau (Elf) told SCI FI Wire that he is in preproduction on a film adaptation of the children's book Zathura, the follow-up to 1995's Jumanji, and will shoot it soon. "We're prepping and casting that, and we should be shooting that over the summer," Favreau said in an interview.

Favreau said the movie is based on the popular children's SF book by author Chris Van Allsburg, who also wrote the book on which Jumanji was based. "It's a science fiction film about two kids whose house gets launched into outer space by a magical toy that they find under the stairs," Favreau said. "They encounter aliens and meteor showers. They have issues with gravity. Different things go crazy, and it's sort of an adventure that takes place in outer space in their flying house."

Favreau, who previously directed the independent films Swingers and Made, said that he has more flexibility as a director as his budgets increase. "If you do sort of a left-of-the-dial indie, it might cost less money, but they see a less potential upside to it, so they tend to be very controlling and want to protect their investment, more so than in a movie like Elf or Zathura, where they know that there's practically a market for it," Favreau said. "If you give them what they want so that the film is going to perform commercially, they will pretty much leave you alone as far as how you execute that vision. But, also, having the success of Elf under my belt, there are more people who want to be in business with me, and, as a result, they go farther out of their way to accommodate me creatively. They give me a much wider berth."


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