Oct 11, 2026 8:00pm IST
‘Impossible Creatures’ Author Katherine Rundell Offers Update on Film Adaptation: ‘I’m Finishing the Fourth Book and Writing The Screenplays’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Almost exactly a year ago, it was reported that celebrated British author Katherine Rundell and her creative partner Charles Collier had landed a seven-figure deal with Walt Disney Studios to adapt Rundell’s children’s fantasy series, “Impossible Creatures” into a film franchise. Originally planned as a trilogy, the book series is now slated to have five books in total. The third book “The Neverfear” was published in September 2026. The story follows adventures in a secret magical place called the Glimouria Archipelago, full of fantastical creatures of myth and legend, hidden from the rest of the world.
As part of the deal, Rundell has not only been writing the remaining two books in the series but also the screenplays for the first two films. In an exclusive chat with Variety India, the author explained the collaboration with Disney as well as offered an update on what stage the adaptation is at.
“The deal was licensing the rights to all five books, only three of which have been published so far,” Rundell says. “I haven't written the fifth one. I'm still finishing the fourth and writing the screenplays as well. We're still in the process of script development.”
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When asked if the 39-year-old author and academic is nervous about the responsibility of adapting her work for the screen, Rundell exudes confidence. “I have written quite a few screenplays before, so I was confident that I wanted to write them. And it was a real delight when Disney read the scripts I had written and were keen for me to do them.”
Elaborating on her love for the medium, she says, “One of the things I love about screenwriting, which is different from novel writing, is that it’s a deeply collaborative process. I love the novel and how I sit alone in my room for months or years on end. Whereas in screenwriting, I am always asking, “Do you think this would work? Is this going to be something that will shine?” The process of storytelling is different and will need other people's genius—the director, cinematographer, the actors. To make a film come to life is not one person's imagination. It is many working in harmony to create something wonderful.”
The first two books in Rundell’s series have sold over 4 million copies. The first book, “Impossible Creatures,” came out in 2023, following which the second book, “The Poisoned King,” was published last year, in 2025. The series, its fantasy world-building and phenomenon, has been compared to “Harry Potter” and “The Twilight Saga,” with Rundell becoming the first British children’s author since J.K. Rowling to simultaneously top the children’s book charts in the UK and the US. The jump from page to screen is something the author believes will only enhance the experience for the reader.
“A book gives you front-row access to someone's inner life, and a movie gives you the power to create a visual allegory of the same life,” Rundell explains. “And it allows you, of course, to have a huge visual extravaganza: fight scenes, dance scenes, music, the beauty of the human body in motion; all of these things I find so exciting. The idea is that we can take what’s written on paper — a girl flying through clouds with a flying coat — and make that real so that when you watch it, your stomach swoops as she soars!”
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Surprisingly, when asked if there’s a particular aspect of Glimouria that she feels will be the biggest challenge to bring to screen, Rundell doesn’t name flying children or magical creatures like unicorns and griffins that require hardcore technical movie magic. “It's a really good question. I think the challenge will be how you capture the yearning of a young person's heart,” says Rundell. “Young people yearn so deeply. They long so much for clarity, truth, beauty, understanding, connection, safety and joy. I think youth is a time of longing, seeking, building and inventing. And how you capture that on a screen, that intensity of feeling, that is a fascinating challenge and one I'm eager to see how we all rise to. I think this film will require a great deal from its young actors.”
For any “Impossible Creatures” book fans, the fact that much of the creative control rests with the author might be a good sign. As for Rundell, she settles any book vs. film debate by assuring fans that they are two separate entities and one doesn’t dilute the other.
“The film is a different creature. Nothing that the film does changes the book. So the book is still there and will remain forever. Therefore, when the film makes changes, I am perfectly happy with that, because I feel the book is still mine. The book has not changed. And I love the idea that film is a different medium and different choices can and often have to be made. It is a different experience.”
“It is, of course, a much shorter experience. You are distilling the essence of the book into the movie,” she continues. “A lot of the adaptations that I love are not completely faithful, on a beat-for-beat level, to a book. It is more that they capture the spirit of a book, like the ‘Hunger Games’ adaptations, which I think are brilliant. There's a lot that they do to shift some of the emotional stresses; some of the focus changes in those books. But I think both the books and the films are spectacular,” Rundell concludes.
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