Paramount Pictures has acquired screen rights to Stoneheart, the first installment of a fantasy trilogy about ancient statues that come to life in London, Variety reported. Scott Rudin and Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce, and Charlie Fletcher will write the script from his novel, which will be published in the United States by Hyperion and by the Hachette-owned Hodder Children’s imprint in the United Kingdom.

In Stoneheart, a shy 12-year-old on a class trip to London’s war museum knocks the head off a stone dragon and quickly finds himself menaced by stone serpents that adorned the museum and have come to life. The kid is saved by the bronze statue of a soldier.

Paramount’s excitement about Stoneheart can be seen in the fact that its top two producers - Scott Rudin (Failure to Launch, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander) and Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers: The Movie, Derailed, Four Brothers) - both wanted the book when it was brought to the studio. Instead of choosing one man to guide the project, the studio persuaded them to agree (eagerly, supposedly) to collaborate for the first time.