Lemony Snicket goes to the movies
And 11th volume of 'Unfortunate Events' out Tuesday
By Todd Leopold
CNN
(CNN) -- Daniel Handler has a vested interest in hoping the movie "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" -- expected to be a big holiday draw -- plays well.
After all, he is Lemony Snicket, having plucked the whimsical pseudonym to write the series of children's books on which the movie is based. Indeed, the 11th and latest of the "Unfortunate Events" chronicles, "The Grim Grotto" (HarperCollins), is out Tuesday.
But he makes a distinction between the adventures of the Baudelaire orphans and their evil pursuer, Count Olaf, in hardcover and on celluloid.
"A film is an entirely different thing," he says in a phone interview. "The movie couldn't be entirely faithful to the book unless it consisted of a photograph of each page."
But he says the filmmakers did try to stay loyal to the books, including enlisting Handler to write the script. He wrote eight drafts but decided to hand off the work after that.
"I felt I didn't have a ninth in me," he says. The script is credited to Handler and Robert Gordon ("GalaxyQuest"); the film is directed by Brad Silberling ("Moonlight Mile").
'Bewildering' success
It's been quite a journey for Handler, who'd written two novels for adults -- "Watch Your Mouth" and "The Basic Eight" -- before deciding to rework a mock-gothic manuscript he'd done called "A Series of Unfortunate Events." The books, laced with literary allusions and dark comedy, became best sellers soon after their release in 2000.
Handler even produced a companion work, "Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography," about the books' mysterious author, who longs for his late Beatrice and is determined to chronicle the Baudelaires' story at all costs.
The success has been "pretty crazy," Handler says.
"It's been bewildering," he says. "The most shocking thing was I had to get an unlisted phone number and take strange security measures. I never in a million years thought this would happen to me.
"I thought I'd be a cult author at most. Instead I'm currently living near a bridge instead of under one," says the San Francisco-based writer.
Carrey 'really scared me'
 Daniel Handler |  |
Handler is working on a third novel for adults, "Adverbs," which is about love, he says. ("It's in favor of love," he adds.) There will also be more Snicket books to come, though the story of the Baudelaires will conclude with the 13th book of "Unfortunate Events," as Handler has always planned.
He's enjoyed the moviemaking experience, visiting the set and watching his creations performed for the screen. The cast includes Meryl Streep, Billy Connolly and Jim Carrey as Count Olaf. Carrey, in particular, has been fascinating to watch, he says.
"He's either naturally a snide villain, or he's been in character the entire time," he says. "He really scared me."
As for the children who play the Baudelaires -- Emily Browning (Violet), Liam Aiken (Klaus) and infants Kara and Shelby Hoffman (Sunny) -- he's been "very impressed."
However, have the tots who play Sunny been able to equal the skills of their literary counterpart? After all, though Violet is a MacGyver-like tinkerer and Klaus a bookish idea person, Sunny is known for her sharp teeth.
"I don't know whether it's digital effects or if they trained a baby to bite through steel," Handler says. "I'm not sure what method was used."
And as for "The Grim Grotto," which places the Baudelaires in "an unpleasant amount of dampness" according to the jacket copy, what can readers expect?
"People can expect poisonous mushrooms," Handler. "And then only if they open the book."
