Lucy Alibar, Guillermo Del Toro team for “Secret Garden” at Universal

PanARMENIAN.Net - Universal Pictures beat out four studios to acquire a pitch for a new film version of the Frances Hodgson Burnett novel The Secret Garden that will be scripted by Oscar-nominated Beasts Of The Southern Wild co-writer Lucy Alibar. She will work closely with Guillermo del Toro, who’ll produce with Mark Johnson. Del Toro and Johnson are re-teaming after they produced the 2011 feature remake of the classic ABC telepic Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, Deadline said.

In The Secret Garden, an orphaned girl is sent to live with her reclusive uncle and discovers a hidden garden containing magical secrets. This project will take on its own original path from other stage and screen adaptations seen in recent years. Word around town is that it will be set in the American South at the turn of the 20th Century.

The last major adaptation of The Secret Garden was the 1993 pic directed by Agnieska Holland for Warner Bros. Johnson also produced the 1995 Alfonso Cuaron-directed A Little Princess, also based on a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Alibar made her feature debut on Beasts Of The Southern Wild, which is an adaptation of her play Juicy and Delicious. She wrote the script with director Benh Zeitlin.