Joss Whedon

MOVIE bosses are targeting the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to write the movie script for Graham Taylor’s first book, Shadowmancer.

The former Curate of Whitby sold the movie rights to Fortitude Films last year in a deal thought to have been worth £3 million. Now Fortitude and its partner Universal are looking to take on a scriptwriter to help take the best-selling fantasy novel to the silver screen.

They are keen to land Buffy creator Joss Whedon, whose writing credentials also include Toy Story and Alien Resurrection.

If all goes to plan, filming is likely to take place next year, with much of it on the coast between Scarborough and Whitby.

Mr Taylor said: "They have it farmed out to six or seven scriptwriters. "Once the script has been sorted they can go from pre-production to production and start filming. Universal and Fortitude want Joss Whedon who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer to do it.

"He’s their number one choice and he is my number one choice, but he might be busy because he’s already working on another project with Universal."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer pitted a teenage girl and her friends against vampires, demons and other evil forces.

It was first released as a movie in September 1992 and although it gained a cult following, it flopped at the box office.

The series, however, became a smash hit in the States and in the UK and helped catapult the careers of its main stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Boreanaz and Alyson Hannigan.

Whedon was also building a reputation in Hollywood based on his talent for writing movie scripts.

He wrote or co-wrote several movies including Toy Story - for which he received an Oscar nomination - Alien Resurrection and Titan AE and is currently directing the Firefly movie called Serenity.

Whedon also wrote uncredited drafts or re-writes of Speed, Waterworld, Twister and X-Men, although little of his work remained in the final drafts of any of those screenplays.