New Taymor / Disney Collaberation
Taymor, Disney get close on
'Chang & Eng'
The Walt Disney Co. has paid low-six figures against
more than $1 million to acquire the feature film rights to
Darin Strauss's debut novel, "Chang and Eng," a dramatic
epic about Siamese twins that Julie Taymor is in early
negotiations to direct. Walt Disney Studios chairman Peter
Schneider is personally shepherding development of the
project, which will reveal the longings and humanity of the
twins. Strauss's deal includes adapting his novel, which
was published by Dutton in June, for the screen. The book
is a fictionalized account of the lives of Chang and Eng
Bunker, Siamese twins for whom the term was coined and
who became one of the 19th century's most fabled oddities.
Born attached at the chest, they lived conjoined lives,
married sisters and fathered 21 children between them.
(Cathy Dunkley and Greg Hernandez)
