With all the Q&As that we’ve been having, I thought it was time to update on some of the information that we’ve gotten from K.A. & Michael so far.
RE-RELEASE DETAILS:
From AFF:
Well, we’ve been told that Scholastic will release some books from ANIMORPHS classic in Spring 2011. How many books? Don’t know.
We have briefly discussed the possibility of a 55th book. Or a second series, an ANI reboot. But nothing has been decided and as weird as it is, it’s not our call. It’s up to Scholastic. And bear in mind that thanks to the turnover in the industry there is no one at Scholastic who was around for the first run.
From RAF:
We’re happy about a re-release. With some caveats.
Our preference would be for a book re-release of a limited number of books — there’s no way they can redo all the books in paper — accompanied by an e-book re-release of all the books. In an ideal world we’d see e-books going out for $3.99 or so.
From RAF, about the editing changes:
We don’t know how much updating there will be. We hope there will be some but honestly Scholastic doesn’t talk to us much. The decision is entirely theirs. Yes, this sounds a little odd, but right now that’s where it stands. None of the people who were at Scholastic during ANIMORPHS are there now — our editor Tonya Martin is long gone, and the boss of bosses, the series queen herself, Jean Feiwel, (Goosebumps, Babysitters Club, Animorphs) now runs an imprint at Macmillan.
The editors there now are not very familiar with ANIMORPHS. Although we think they’re familiarizing themselves with the series.
The biggest updating problem by the way isn’t Offspring (which admittedly did not hold up over time) but the ubiquity of cell phones and especially smart phones. They’d screw up many a plot point.
ANIMORPHS 2.0, IF IT WERE TO HAPPEN.
From AFF:
The monthly series idea is kind of dead now because of the economics involved. So if there is an ANIMORPHS 2.0 it won’t be the killer grind of 14 books per year, it would probably be 2 per year, maybe a bit longer. So most likely we’d do the work ourselves. Of the original series we wrote the first 24, the last 2, and all the MEGAS and CHRONICLES. Plus probably 15% of the ghosted books. Plus of course the outlines for ghosted books. While we were writing ANI we became parents for the first time — the real-life Jake — and that kind of knocked us on our butts in terms of keeping up.
TV / MOVIE UPDATE:
The TV/movie situation looks fairly hopeless for Animorphs at the moment. GONE might have higher chances of this happening, however neither series has made much progress so far.
From RAF
We’d love to see a movie. We’d be working to that end but Scholastic has essentially shut us out of any discussion or consideration of such a thing. We are not updated, we are not consulted or involved.
Michael has a great deal more involvement in and control over movie prospects for GONE than we have over ANIMORPHS.
From AFF:
As for TV or movie again, we’re all for it. But Scholastic literally does not talk to us about this. If you get the idea we’re frustrated by this situation you’d be correct.
So there you have it. However, the one last thing I do want to add to this update is the question that was raised by K.A & Michael in the previous post, about the possible re-release of Animorphs in an e-book format. I have set up a discussion topic for this on our forum, so feel free to use it and discuss it there. I know that both authors are very much looking to hear the opinions of their fans on this.
That about covers it for now, I believe. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything, or provided an incorrect source. I’ll be sure to update on this as I hear more. Until next time! 🙂
An update from