Artemis Fowl Movie 2013 Gets Green Light From Disney, ‘Harry Potter’ Writer Hired For Script Adaptation For Live-Action Film

Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" book will be adapted into a movie, Disney announced this afternoon. Harvey Weinstein will produce, and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" screenwriter Michael Goldenberg will handle the script for the live-action film.

The movie will be based on the first two books in the Artemis Fowl series, which has eight installments in total. The second one is titled 'The Arctic Incident,' Hypable.com reports.

Actor Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal will produce alongside Weinstein.

The young adult fantasy book series "Artemis Fowl" is about a 12-year-old millionaire criminal mastermind, NY Daily News reports. Irish author Colfer published the novels between 2001 and 2012 and has sold more than 21 million copies worldwide.

"If you would have told me five years ago I would be producing a project with Disney I would have thought you were crazy," Harvey Weinstein said in a statement.

Weinstein was referring to The Weinstein brothers leaving Miramax in 2005 after a contentious relationship with Disney, NY Daily News writes.

"This is a special project for me because my children absolutely love this book. This story is for everyone and there is no one better than Disney to make a film that will excite people young and old," Weinstein continued.

According to Variety, Weinstein has been working on a bigscreen version of "Artemis Fowl" since 2000, when he initially locked down the film rights to the novels with Tribeca Prods.

"Artemis Fowl's" "balance of mystery, adventure and family appeal" makes the books "a natural fit for Disney," according to Sean Bailey, president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production. "We're looking forward to collaborating with Harvey on this exciting project."

A release date for the yet-to-be-titled film has not been announced.