Fox Animation has picked the feature film rights to Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Witch Boy, The Hollywood Reporter reported. The book is the first solo graphic novel outing of Ostertag, who works as a designer on the Disney show Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
Scholastic Press will publish The Witch Boy in October. Fox senior executive Darlene Caamaño Loquet will oversee the project for the studio.
The Witch Boy centres on 13-year-old Aster, whose family is born with magic. Boys grow up to be shapeshifters and girls into witches, without exception. But Aster can’t seem to get the hang of shapeshifting. Instead, he spends his time spying on the witchery lessons the girls are getting. He seems to have a knack for casting spells and wants to know more, but the only person he can share his growing gift with is Charlie, a girl from the non-magical side of town. Then, during a night of shapeshifting practice, one of the boys goes missing. Aster knows he can search for the boy with the witchcraft he’s been secretly learning. But he will have to break his family’s most important tradition which will either save the day or ruin everything.
Ostertag graduated in 2014 from the School of Visual Arts, where she studied cartooning and illustration. She illustrates a bi-weekly webcomic called Strong Female Protagonist with co-creator Brennan Lee Mulligan and has drawn a graphic novel named Shattered Warrior, which will come out from First Second Books in spring this year. Other works of her include short comics like Pride, The Selkie, Cellar Door and Dragon Age.
