Tim Burton to Direct Ransom Riggs' 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'

Some director-material pairings require explanation; this one requires only a nod. Tim Burton is in negotiations to direct the adaptation of Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the bestselling novel built around a collection of genuinely eerie vintage photographs Riggs assembled from flea markets and collectors.

The book follows sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman, who traces his grandfather's tall tales to a Welsh island and finds the children from the old photos still living there — inside a time loop, hiding from creatures that hunt the 'peculiar.' Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) is writing the script for Fox.

Riggs' novel spent over a year on the New York Times list and spawned a sequel, Hollow City, with the photographs doing double duty as illustrations and plot evidence. If any filmmaker owns the aesthetic territory of melancholy children with unusual abilities standing in formal poses, it is the director of Edward Scissorhands.

Update: Burton's film opened in September 2016 with Eva Green as the pipe-smoking, bird-shifting headmistress and Asa Butterfield as Jacob. Details and ratings live on the adaptation's page.