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Comic-Con: Dean Koontz Teases With Odd Thomas Movie News

Bestselling author Dean Koontz was at Comic-Con over the weekend and made the first official announcement regarding an Odd Thomas movie.
By  · Published on July 29th, 2008

Bestselling author Dean Koontz was at Comic-Con over the weekend and made the first official announcement regarding an Odd Thomas movie.  He said the screenplay by an unnamed writer is perfect and he’s quite pleased.  Koontz also teased that an actor has already been signed to play Odd, but again, he wasn’t naming names.  So is this a lot of information?  No.  But it is good info as Odd Thomas is easily one of Koontz’ best books (along with Watchers and The Bad Place), and if done right would be an incredibly fun, suspenseful, and touching movie.

Odd Thomas currently has three uneven sequels, and Koontz said he plans to end the Odd series with seven books.  The story centers on a young man who works as a fry cook in the small town of Pico Mundo, CA, where he lives with his friends and the ghost of Elvis Presley.  Other ghosts come and go from his life, some too angry or scared to move on, some needing Odd’s help before they can.  Odd Thomas is a truly humorous book, but also manages several edge-of-your-seat scenes as well.  The ending is one of his strongest and packs an enormous emotional punch.

Koontz’ track record in Hollywood is pretty sad and consists mostly of TV movies and direct-to-DVD titles.  To put in another way, his cinematic zenith was 1998’s Phantoms starring Ben Affleck and Rose McGowan.  His work for TV has fared considerably better, with the likes of Intensity and The Face of Fear being the standouts.  Several of Koontz’ bestsellers are twisty as fuck thrillers (like The Husband, Velocity, and The Good Guy) that have no supernatural elements at all, much like the work of Harlan Coben.  Having seen the phenomenal job French filmmakers did with Coben’s Tell No One, Koontz may want to consider going international.  Here’s hoping Odd Thomas is in good hands, even if they are unnamed for the time being.

Stay tuned all this week as we bring you coverage from Comic-Con International. Not only will we be roaming the floor in search of love, but we will have the latest news Live from Hall H, great interviews with some of Hollywood’s hottest stars and random convention shenanigans, courtesy of our Comic-Con Attack Squad! To keep tabs on all of the happenings, just head over to our Comic-Con 2008 Homepage.

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Rob Hunter has been writing for Film School Rejects since before you were born, which is weird seeing as he's so damn young. He's our Chief Film Critic and Associate Editor and lists 'Broadcast News' as his favorite film of all time. Feel free to say hi if you see him on Twitter @FakeRobHunter.