EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has picked up rights to Drew Daywalt’s bestselling children’s picture book The Day the Crayons Quit. 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen will produce what is envisioned as a live-action/animation hybrid. Daywalt and illustrator Oliver Jeffers will be executive producers and VP Brittany Morrissey will oversee for the studio.
The book follows a box of crayons whose inhabitants go on strike against their young owner after growing sick of how they’re being used, as their individual colors dictate very limited day-to-day existences for each crayon. There is franchise potential as a sequel, The Day The Crayons Came Home, has sold more than 3 million copies and stayed on the New York Times bestseller lists for more than 200 weeks.
21 Laps just wrapped the second season of the Netflix series Stranger Things, the YA adaptation The Darkest Minds at Fox, as well as the sci-fi thriller Kin at Lionsgate and the indie drama Kodachrome. Paradigm represented the book rights; WME & attorney Wendy Kirk rep 21 Laps.
Daywalt is repped by Madhouse, Dwyer and O’Grady, Writers House and attorney Jamie Coghill. Jeffers is repped by Paul Moreton of the Bell Lomax Moreton Agency and attorney Stephen Dembitzer.
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