Back in 1996 Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves pitched a story to Dreamworks as a potential animated series only to have it rejected.  The project, which was called Interworld for the lack of a better name at the time, was about a boy who was caught between two opposing forces (the armies of magic and science) both of which coveted his power to move between dimensions.  But instead of joining one side or the other, the boy creates an army of his own--a force comprised of various versions of himself from different dimensions--and decides to keep the two opposing forces in balance.

 

A couple of years later Gaiman and Reeves decided to use the storyline as the basis for a novel written in the manner of an action-packed Heinlein space adventure for young readers.  While the novel was originally rejected by several publishers, Gaiman and Reeves resubmitted it last year and Harper's Childrens Books decided to publish Interworld ($16.99), which is due out on June 26th.  But before the book was even published, Dreamworks Animation decided to option it for an animated feature, which means that the project has come full circle and returned from prose world to the animation dimension.