When news of my movie deal with Universal broke in January 2005, it received lots of media attention. Here's a piece from The Bookseller, which originated with my agent (so it's more accurate than many of the articles which sprung up at the time!!).

The Saga of Darren Shan Film Deal

As reported in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter last Thursday and Friday respectively, in a major deal, film rights to the Darren Shan series have been acquired by Universal Studios, the Donners` Co (producing) and Brian Helgeland (adapting and executive producing). Brian Helgeland is the Academy Award winning script writer for LA Confidential as well as Academy Award Nominee for Mystic River. The deal was made by Christopher Little of the Christopher Little Literary Agency, acting on behalf of Darren O`Shaughnessy, a.k.a. Darren Shan.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers in the UK and Little, Brown & Co in the US and 19 other publishers globally, the twelve books in the Darren Shan series are bestsellers in many countries around the world. Darren has reached number one on both the children`s and adults bestseller lists in Japan where he has a huge following. He has also reached number one in Taiwan and Ireland as well as on the UK children's best seller list. To date, the books have sold well over 9 million copies worldwide.