photo credit: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

The film rights for the novel ‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ was a hot commodity last year fetching a whopping six figures cost to seal the deal with Universal.  Now after a year of waiting, Universal is ready to move forward and has set Joe Roth to produce the project.

Universal is hoping the YA novel by Laini Taylor will become the next supernatural franchise now that ‘The Twilight Saga’ movies have ended. The book is about Karou, a 17-year-old art student who is sent around the world by her father to collect teeth for a mysterious purpose. These missions lead her to meet an angel who has some startling revelations about her family and she finds that she is part of an ancient struggle between devils and angels and begins to fall into a forbidden romance with a warrior angel.

Here’s a more detailed synopsis of the book:

This complex story is about a girl who has no idea of who she really is. Her life has been filled with creatures that would cause terror to most but have been family to her. Karou is a strong, talented seventeen year old who helps her “family” of demon like characters collect teeth. The teeth have a use, but Karou has never found out what exactly. She just goes to designated sights through portal doors to collect the teeth and then goes back to her private art school and her one friend. Her lonely life is interrupted by the sight of an angel who is trying to put a stop to the teeth trade and the creatures who traffic them. Even though he should destroy Karou, he cannot bring himself to kill her due to her similarities to his long lost love. What follows is an intriguing tale of forbidden love in a lush, imaginative world.

Roth seems to be the perfect choice to bring this book to the big screen.  Not only has he produced the $1 billion grossing film ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ he was also the producer on ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ and the Angelina Jolie film ‘Maleficent.’

“In ‘Daughter Of Smoke & Bone,’ Laini Taylor masterfully tells a story of identity and destiny that welcomes readers into a fantastical world with a unique mythology,” said Roth. “It is very different than anything we’ve seen before and I look forward to bringing the fascinating characters to the big screen.”

Author Taylor says of Roth’s involvement, “I am a huge fan of his big, gorgeous fantasy epics with powerful female characters. I can’t wait to see how he’ll bring my world to life on film. He’s the dream producer for this property, and I couldn’t be happier.”

The next step will now be to find a director for the film and clearly Universal is making this project a priority.

The sequel to ‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ was released last November and if this film does as well as Universal expects, then we may see ‘Days of Blood and Starlight’ as the next film in what looks to be a very solid supernatural franchise.