It’s no secret that we’re eagerly anticipating Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water. Now, we have a companion novel to look forward to as well.
Everything about Del Toro’s other-worldly fairy tale, The Shape of Water, has us utterly enchanted. We were sold on it from the word go. And now, thanks to Macmillan imprint Feiwel and Friends, there will be plenty more words to follow.
Working in collaboration with Daniel Kraus, The Shape of Water will be published as an adult novel. The novel itself will mirror, and expand upon, the material in the film — though will not be considered a tie-in novel for the movie.
Set during Cold-War era Baltimore, at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, The Shape of Water follows the haunting love story of one of the center’s amphibious assets and a mute, female janitor, who uses sign language to communicate with them.
Illustrations by visual artist James Jean, who also provided the stunning poster art for the film, will feature throughout the novel. His artwork will also be featured on the cover, which you can see below.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Kraus and Del Toro have found success as collaborators. Their previous project, Trollhunters, was picked up by Netflix and became the most-watched family show in Netflix history. Which certainly bodes well for this project.
“This is a story I’ve been thinking about since I was six years old and saw Julie Adams in Creature from the Black Lagoon,” said Guillermo del Toro. “I always hoped she and the creature would end up together, but they didn’t. It was over a breakfast with my Trollhunters collaborator Daniel Kraus that he told me about his version of a similar idea and I knew immediately that we’d cracked the story, both for the movie and the book.”
Kraus added, “The Shape of Water is my oldest spark of an idea—I’ve been carrying it around inside me since I was 15. But it wasn’t a fully fleshed story until I met Guillermo. Within seconds of telling him the premise, he began filling in the narrative blanks. I love writing with Guillermo because he’s the most earnest, emotionally open artist I know, and those sensibilities compliment my darker, grittier tendencies.”
Publication of The Shape of Water novel is planned for February 27, 2018. The film, directed by del Toro and starring Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, and Richard Jenkins, will be released by Fox Searchlight on December 1, 2017.
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