Comic Book Casting: The COURTNEY CRUMRIN Movie

Comics have created all sorts of fairy tales, but Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin series at Oni has delved into a darker and more treacherous imaginary world than most. And with the finale of the Harry Potter film series come and gone, young Ms. Crumrin could prove to be the next big thing for the movie-going public. The comic has been licensed, but no word has ever made it out about an actual movie being produced — but here’s who we’d put in the roles.

The Concept:

A precocious young girl is sent to live with relatives after her parents feared her too rambunctious to handle on their own. This relative turns out to be the shadowy (and creepy) Aloysius, who has his share of secrets hidden all through his country estate. As Courtney tries to come to terms with her new surroundings and her menacing uncle, she falls head-long into a hidden underworld full of goblins, werewolves and faerie folk.

This would be an ideal adaptation for Hollywood to take on, borrowing from the formula laid out by Harry Potter but mixing darker elements and a female lead. It’s like Harry Potter if Hermoine was the lead… and after all, who wouldn’t want to see that?

The Director:

To bring this comic series to life, I’d lean on relative newcomer Juan Antonio Bayona to depict this fantastical world. With help from his long-time friend Guillermo del Toro, Bayona made a big splash with 2007 feature debut The Orphanage, and has already been picked to work on two further projects. Bayona could embrace the horror elements of Courtney Crumrin while keeping it firmly in the grasp of it’s children’s adventure series formula to create something unique and engrossing.

The Cast:

Courtney – Elsie Fisher: When casting a child actor its hard to find the right one who isn’t already aged out of the role. Fisher is best known for voicing young Agnes in Depsicable Me, but she’s also done smaller live-action roles in shows like Medium that hint at possible feature-film potential. It’d be a risk, but so was casting the Harry Potter movies.

Aloysius – David Bowie: Ok ok, he’s best known as a musician than an actor but David Bowie is tailor-made for this role. Add into the fact the overtones of Labryinth that would come with his casting, and he could lend a riveting performance — and a chance for Bowie to dress up.