By Creative Media Times

Margaret K. McElderry Books

Peternelle van Arsdale’s dark atmospheric fantasy debut ‘The Beast is an Animal’ is being developed by Amazon Studios into a movie. According to Variety, the project will be developed by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions production company. Directors Bert & Bertie, who previously helmed Dance Camp (2016), are set to direct and the adapt the film.

Released earlier this year by Margaret K. McElderry Books, BCCB describes the book as a “horrifying tale of revenge, murder, and evil.”

Scott Free Productions is behind Ridley Scott’s own Alien: Covenant released early this summer, as well as “Blade Runner 2049”, sequel to 1982’s classic Blade Runner and a remake to “Murder on the Orient Express”.

Here is the book’s synopsis per its profile on Amazon:

Alys was seven the first time she saw the soul eaters.These soul eaters are twin sisters who were abandoned by their father and slowly grew into something not quite human. And they feed off of human souls. When her village was attacked, Alys was spared and sent to live in a neighboring village. There the devout people created a strict world where fear of the soul eaters—and of the Beast they believe guides them—rule village life. But the Beast is not what they think he is. And neither is Alys.

Inside, Alys feels connected to the soul eaters, and maybe even to the Beast itself. As she grows from a child to a teenager, she longs for the freedom of the forest. And she has a gift she can tell no one, for fear they will call her a witch. When disaster strikes, Alys finds herself on a journey to heal herself and her world. A journey that will take her through the darkest parts of the forest, where danger threatens her from the outside—and from within her own heart and soul.