Warner Bros. Hires Screenwriter for Adaptation of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Last July we reported that Warner Bros. had optioned the film rights to A Discovery of Witches, the debut supernatural suspense novel by Deborah Harness.

Now we're learning that the studio has hired Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony Award-winning playwright David Auburn (Proof, The Lake House) to write the screenplay.

A Discovery of Witches — the first in an expected trilogy — introduces Diana Bishop, a young scholar and the descendant of witches, who discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.

It's no secret that what with the Harry Potter film series complete, Warner Bros. is looking for new material from which to build a franchise. This adaptation would seem to us to be a solid start.

(Related article: The Hollywood Reporter.)