Fox 2000, Chernin Team To Acquire John Rocco’s Caldecott-Winning Book ‘Blackout’
EXCLUSIVE: Fox 2000 has optioned artist and author John Rocco‘s Caldecott-winning picture book Blackout for a live action feature that will be produced by Chernin Entertainment’s Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping, and producer/manager Rob Weisbach. Will Davies, who wrote How To Train Your Dragon, will pen the script.
Rocco’s bestselling book follows a young New York City family, disconnected from each other by their obsessive everyday use of technology, who are separated during a New York City blackout and must find their way back to each other–literally and figuratively–in order to reconnect as a family.
Rocco and Chernin’s Ivana Schecter-Garcia will be exec producers. It’s a highly relate-able movie concept by an accomplished visual author. Rocco studied illustration at Rhode Island School of Design and NYC’s School of Visual Arts and his first job as an illustrator was on Whoopi Goldberg’s children’s book Alice. He has written three other picture books and is the illustrator in all of Rick Riordan’s series Percy Jackson And The Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, and The Heroes Of Olympus. Most recently, Rocco illustrated the fantasy fairy tale The Flint Heart, written by Katherine and John Paterson.
He has also been pre-production art director for DreamWorks on Shrek and for Walt Disney Imagineering, he designed attractions at Disney’s Epcot and was art director for DisneyQuest, the virtual reality theme park in Downtown Disney. He also oversaw production of CGI animation, motion capture and story development for projects at ImagineAsia in the Philippines. A solo exhibition of his works was shown at the Orlando Museum of Modern Art last year and his works have graced Newseum in Washington D.C. and Paul Allen’s Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.
CAA and Weisbach rep Rocco and made the deal.
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