Add another chapter to the continuing friendship of J.J. Abrams and Greg Grunberg. The careers of both the Star Wars: The Force Awakens director and the Heroes star have intertwined with each other over the years thanks to a childhood friendship that continues to this day. Grunberg often plays small roles in Abrams' larger works since the director considers him his good luck charm, but a new project will see Grunberg shouldering the major creative responsibilities while Abrams steps in as a producer.

THR reports that Paramount Pictures has picked up the movie rights to Dream Jumper, a graphic novel co-written by Grunberg and Lucas Turnbloom, an award-winning cartoonist who also illustrated the story. Abrams will produce the adaptation, which may be live-action or animated, through his Bad Robot banner; currently there's no writer attached to the project. Scholastic will publish the first book "Nightmare Escape" on June 28th.

Image via Lucasfilm[/caption]

As Scholastic announced last year, the full-color graphic novel will also come with a foreword from Abrams, so he's clearly been involved with the project for a while. It's also one that's aimed at young readers. Grunberg explains the genesis of the idea as follows:

“Lucas and I met at San Diego Comic-Con. We hit it off immediately and knew we wanted to create something together. When my 12 year-old son Ben described a dream he had about a boy who could jump in and out of his friends’ nightmares to help them fight off bad guys and monsters, it sounded like a really relatable and exciting world to build a graphic novel and I immediately thought of Lucas."

Turnbloom adds:

“That initial brainstorming session was so full of endless story possibilities and wonderful ideas that we knew this was the project for us, and publishing Dream Jumper with Graphix is perfect because Graphix is the ultimate destination for kids and comics.”

Here's the book's synopsis (via Amazon):

Ben has a problem. When he sleeps he dreams, and when he dreams, they're all nightmares! But he can also jump into other people's dreams. So when his friends start falling victim to an evil dream-monster that prevents them from waking, Ben knows he has to help them. Easier said than done when dreams can shift and the monster knows his way around the ever-changing landscape of the mind! With help from a talking rabbit-companion who has a mysterious past, Ben might just be able to defeat the monster and save his friends . . . if he can figure out how to use the power within him against his enemies.