THEY struck cinematic gold with their film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Now movie moguls at New Line Cinema are hoping that another fantasy trilogy will rule them all — even though its creator was barely known outside of Germany until recently.

Fresh from their Oscars triumph with The Return of the King, the final part of the Rings saga, New Line chiefs are planning to film Cornelia Funke’s 542-page children’s novel, Inkheart. It tells the story of a bookbinder called Mo who has the power to breathe life into stories and characters just by reading aloud.

In her native Germany, Ms Funke, 45, is the second most successful children’s author after J. K. Rowling, with more than 40 books to her name.

However, her work was noticed here only when, 18 months ago, Barry Cunningham — the publisher who discovered Rowling’s Harry Potter — was contacted by a 12-year-old bilingual English girl. She wrote to ask why Funke’s books were not available in English. “It’s better than Harry Potter,” she told him. Intrigued, he got hold of Funke’s books and found himself captivated.

Readers here seem equally enthusiastic. Just five months after publishing Inkheart, he has seen the hardback edition sell 30,000 copies in Britain, an astonishing figure for a children’s book, and 200,000 in America.

While the paperback edition will not be published until June, the book has spent 19 weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list. Mr Cunningham said of Inkheart: “I thought it was terribly filmic immediately. It is a gateway into the imagination, like the wardrobe in Narnia or The Borrowers when they slip under the floorboards.

Funke’s books, inspired by her childhood reading of C. S. Lewis, J. M. Barrie and J. R. R Tolkien, have fuelled the imagination of film-makers, as much as young readers.

New Line Cinema is said to have fought off stiff competition from a number of rivals, including David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter films, for the film rights.

The author, who will serve as a producer on the project, said: “New Line gave me confidence that the movie will have its own life and be true to my book. I really appreciate what they did with Lord of the Rings.”

She added: “A good adaptation for the movies has to be in some ways faithful to the book, but in others not. Harry Potter was too faithful. A movie has to have its own breath. You have such a short time to tell a long story. A book stays with you for days and weeks. With a movie, you tell the story in two hours.”

She is hoping to cast Brendan Fraser, who appeared opposite Michael Caine in the remake of The Quiet American, in the lead role.

Even as she was writing the book, she imagined him as the character: “He’s a real actor — not just a movie star. He has a special voice, which is of vast importance to the character.”

New Line Cinema was a mid-size studio that took a chance on Tolkien’s classic at a time when its larger Hollywood rivals dismissed the project as too risky.

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