A television show based on Louis Sachar’s Holes has been given a pilot order at Disney+.
Published in 1998, Sachar’s Holes tells the story of a boy, Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to a juvenile detention camp after being wrongly convicted of stealing a famous baseball player’s sneakers. Stanley arrives at this camp only to discover that, rather than more traditional means of punishment, the warden forces all the inmates to dig holes in the desert on a daily basis.
Holes was previously turned into a 2003 Disney movie directed by Andrew Davis. That film stars Shia LaBeouf as Stanley, while the cast further includes Khleo Thomas as Hector “Zero” Zeroni, Sigourney Weaver as Warden Walker, Jon Voight as Mr. Sir, Tim Blake Nelson as Dr. Steve Pendanski, and Brenden Jefferson as Rex “X-Ray” Washburn.”
What do we know about the Disney+ Holes pilot?
Per Variety, Liz Phang will now serve as showrunner and an executive producer on the new Holes pilot. Alina Mankin serves as writer and executive producer, while additional executive producers include Drew Goddard, Sarah Esberg, and Mike Medavoy. Walden Media is producing the pilot, while Andrea Massaro serves as a co-executive producer.
“In this reimagining of the beloved 1998 book from Louis Sachar, a teenage girl is sent to a detention camp where the ruthless Warden forces the campers to dig holes for a mysterious purpose,” the logline reads.
Goddard said about the project, “My mom’s been a schoolteacher for her whole life and, as such, she’s served as a de facto book scout for Goddard Textiles. She always knows what ‘the kids’ are into long before everyone else does. Holes was the first book she suggested to me – this was back in the late ‘90s – and she was positive it was going to be a phenomenon. It feels good to bring it full circle for Mrs. Goddard and her sixth-grade class.”