Jennifer Lopez To Produce a Carmen Sandiego Movie
Almost Totally Excellent
Okay, before we begin to instantly worry about the very mention of Jennifer Lopez being involved with something as beloved as Carmen Sandiego, let’s hear her out. Walden Media has acquired the rights to Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and has teamed up with Lopez to develop a live-action, full-length feature film about the globe-trotting thief. Lopez, who is attached to produce (not star), hopes to turn this into a family-friendly caper reminiscent of the National Treasure movies and The Thomas Crown Affair. Wait, what? That … might be pretty awesome, actually!
From Deadline, here is the logline:
When the ACME agency’s greatest detective Carmen Sandiego becomes the world’s greatest thief, it’s up to her former partner to follow her clues and track her down. Their cat-and-mouse game leads the partner to confront a greater mystery: Is Carmen really a thief or a hero?
Well, we’re already on board with a Carmen Sandiego movie, especially if the thoughts in Hollywood’s head were “Classy Action Caper” and not “Pandering Family Movie.” And while Lopez’s involvement might seem questionable, maybe she’d be a great producer for something like this. She, along with her producing partners Benny Medina and Simon Fields (Nuyorican Productions), plus Nick Osbourne, Trevor Engelson, and Devin Andre (Underground Films), are all behind the project after being acquired from Houghton Mifflin. And here is a slight catch, courtesy of Walden Media (which no one involved seems to be worried about): the movie adaptation will have to somehow provide an educational challenge for kids.
Walden Media, which has produced several other family films based on books we all read as kids (including The Chronicles of Narnia series, Bridge to Terabithia, Charlotte’s Web, and Holes), has a mandate that the films they produce have to include an educational quality for kids, besides being merely appropriate. Carmen Sandiego, which began as a computer game and spawned both a live-action series and a cartoon, was geared towards teaching kids geography and problem solving skills. As of right now, there aren’t a lot of details on how this will be adapted into an action movie, but we think it sounds like fun. If there was ever a kid-friendly world traveller deserving of an educational big screen moment, it’s Carmen Sandiego.
Jennifer Lopez is not signed on to play her. But who could? Let the speculation begin!
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