Paramount Developing ‘Superworld’ Animated Feature Based On Yarrow And Carrie Cheney Book Series

Paramount Animation and Temple Hill are co-developing an animated feature adaptation of Superworld, a recently launched juvenile fiction superhero book series from long-time animation industry veterans Yarrow and Carrie Cheney.

According to Deadline, Brad Butler will lead the project for Paramount Animation. The studio is having a good 2023, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem raking in $172.7 million at the global box office so far and PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie set to hit U.S. theaters on September 29.

For Temple Hill, the film represents an entry point into animation. The studio’s live-action credits include the Twilight films, The Fault in Our Stars, and First Man.

Penguin Random House publishes the Cheney’s books. The synopsis for the first, Superworld: Save Noah reads:

Every 12-year-old kid feels like they don’t fit in sometimes — but Noah takes it to a whole new level. When a meteor crashed to Earth on his seventh birthday, the whole planet got superpowers… except for Noah.

Thanks to his tin foil superhero costume, Noah’s powers got deflected — onto his little sister. He’s literally the only normal person in all of Superworld. He can’t fly. He can’t scale tall buildings. He can’t turn broccoli into candy. (And of course his little sister got double powers. Of course.) And still…when the biggest, baddest villian in town plots to take over Superworld forever, normal Noah and his supercharged best friends are the ones who just might save the day. Seriously.

Just before Save Noah was released last year, Random House published a behind-the-scenes video with a very animated feel. Look how colorful and well-developed the cg characters are around the one-minute mark. That makes sense when one considers the Cheney’s resumes.

Yarrow and Carrie Cheney are a husband-and-wife team that met as students at Calarts in 1992 and have made art together ever since. In 2006, they wrote, directed, and produced the holiday short The Three Wise Men, originally titled The Very First Noel.

The two worked in Los Angeles for years but eventually relocated to Paris, where Yarrow served as production designer on films including Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. He later co-directed The Secret Life of Pets and directed The Grinch (2018).

The couple now lives in Ojai, California, where they work on Superworld together. Superworld: Save Noah was published in November of 2022. The second, Superworld: Destructo World, is scheduled for early 2025.