Oscar-winning director Juan Jose Campanella (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) will make his English-language feature-film debut with an adaptation of the children's fantasy novel Heck.  According to Heat Vision, Heck is like a kids' version of Dante's Inferno and with that, I am instantly sold.  The plot "centers on a good kid named Milton Fauster (what child is going to get those references?) who, with his shoplifting sister, dies in a freak accident and ends up in an unearthly reform school called Heck."

Heck is part of a series, and the film will be an adaptation of the first book, Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go.  Spyglass Entertainment, who is producing the film, is currently looking for a writer and plans to make Heck, "a big, effects-driven family adventure in the vein of Beetlejuice."  Hit the jump for more details on the book because it sounds great.

Here's the official book description of Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go [via Amazon]:

When Milton and Marlo Fauster die in a marshmallow-bear explosion, they get sent straight to Heck, an otherworldly reform school. Milton can understand why his kleptomaniac sister is here, but Milton is-or was-a model citizen. Has a mistake been made? Not according to Bea "Elsa" Bubb, the Principal of Darkness. She doesn't make mistakes. She personally sees to it that Heck-whether it be home ec class with Lizzie Borden, ethics with Richard Nixon, or gym with Blackbeard the pirate-is especially, well, heckish for the Fausters. Will Milton and Marlo find a way to escape? Or are they stuck here for all eternity, or until they turn eighteen, whichever comes first?