When news of my movie deal with Universal broke in January 2005, it received lots of media attention. Most of the reports included all sorts of inaccuracies about the books, which I find quite amusing!! Here's one of the pieces, from Entertainment News.

'Cirque Du Freak' Coming to Town (Reuters)

Mon Jan 17th 2005 at 2:46 am ETBy Liza Foreman
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Universal Pictures has acquired the film rights to the best-selling children's series "Cirque Du Freak" by Irish author Darren Shan, and has hired Oscar-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland to adapt it.

The "Freak" series, published by HarperCollins, has sold more than 8.3 million copies worldwide to date.

"Freak" revolves around a young Darren Shan, who, after attending an illegal freak show with his best friend, decides to become a vampire's assistant in order to save his best friend's life. Forced to leave his home and family forever, Darren joins the freak show where he meets a host of bizarre creatures and finds himself at the center of a war between the vampires and a rival clan.

In the United Kingdom, the 12th and latest book in the "Freak" series spent several weeks at No. 1 on the children's list and also landed in the top 10 overall books list. That book also hit No. 1 on overall lists in Japan, Taiwan and Ireland.

The eighth book in the series, the latest to be released in the United States, hit No. 6 on the New York Times' children's list last year. "Cirque Du Freak #9" will be released in May in the United States.

Helgeland will adapt the first three books of the series for the feature and also will executive produce. He won an Oscar for writing the screenplay to "L.A. Confidential," and also was nominated for writing "Mystic River."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter