“We would be foolish to expect that a series of five books, each with their own plot connected to one overarching plot, would somehow work in a three-act structure that’s 90 minutes long,” admits DiTerlizzi, who began drawing Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You when he was 12. “In fact, I think a direct facsimile of the books would have been kind of boring on screen.”
However, he and co-writer Black, who has a background in teen fiction, were heeded when drafts went too far off the deep end.
And they insisted that the movie stick to certain story fundamentals.
“They’re ordinary kids in extraordinary circumstances,” DiTerlizzi enumerates. “They have no special powers, they don’t live in a land far, far away. And they’re dealing with an unfortunate social reality: that their family is being torn apart through divorce.”
DiTerlizzi has a pretty good grasp on who his books’ core audience is: “It’s usually 9 to about 12. Sometimes we’ll get a 13-year-old in there, but that’s the window.”
A prime moviegoing demographic, but hardly enough to justify a production with many hundreds of complex special-effects shots.
But will the efforts to make Spiderwick appeal to older kids and more adults — a portion of whom would be unlikely to go to a movie full of childish fairies and brownies in any case — alienate wee-er ones and their nightmare-concerned guardians?
“I have a little boy, 4, and a little girl, 8,” says Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, yet another of the film’s producers.
“They’ve both seen the movie, and I think it has the right combination. I don’t know if a lot of people would take a 3- or 4-year-old to a movie like this. But my little boy has been around a lot of fantasy-type stuff and my little girl was watching Lord of the Rings when she was 2, so maybe they’re just used to that type of thing. But a lot of her classmates also have seen the movie and really enjoyed it. There’s enough suspense, but I think they’re also attracted to the family dynamics.”
Author Black recalls her own coming of age with the movie fear factor.
“When I was a kid, I was really scared to see Indiana Jones — you know, the preview with all of the skulls?” she says. “I was 9, 8, something like that. My mom didn’t care; she was, ‘I want to see it, so you’re going.’ And I really loved it. I had to close my eyes during that part, but it pushed the edge of my comfort level. I was scared, but I wasn’t terrified.
“You have to know your kid, obviously, but hopefully Spiderwick could be scary without being terrifying.”
And even if it is too much for some tender sensibilities, watering down a proven tale just doesn’t seem like a very good idea.
“I think we forget the stuff we liked when we were 10 years old,” DiTerlizzi points out. “Grimm’s fairy tales, you know, they’re grim, and you’re reading that to your children at a younger age.
“But let’s not kid ourselves. The video games that they’re playing now, a lot of the other movies that are out there ... . If you really want to feel that lightness, that relief at the end of a story like this, it’s got to get dark before it gets light.
“That’s just basic storytelling.”
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