'Nimona' Movie Coming From 'Feast' Director Patrick Osborne

Nimona's next grand adventure will take her to the big screen. Fox Animation has just scooped up the rights to Noelle Stevenson's award-winning, bestselling graphic novel, with Patrick Osborne (Feast) set to direct.

For those unfamiliar, the genre mashup series centers on the titular Nimona, a mischievous shapeshifter who serves as a sidekick to the not-so-evil supervillain Lord Ballister Blackheart. Learn everything there is to know about the Nimona movie after the jump. 

THR reports Fox Animation beat out other interested parties to win the rights. Fox is apparently a big fan of Stevenson's. Just a few weeks ago it scooped up her other comic, Lumberjanes, for a live-action adaptation. Marc Haimes is attached to write the screenplay. Vertigo Entertainment's Roy Lee and Adam Stone will produce.

Set in a medieval sci-fi universe, Stevenson's series follows Nimona and Ballister on a quest to reclaim his honor. They set out to expose the dark truth about Ballister's best friend turned archnemesis, Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin of the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics.

Nimona began in 2012 as a web comic which doubled as Stevenson's senior thesis for the Maryland Institute College of Art. Earlier this year, the entire series was collected into a graphic novel published by HarperCollins. Nimona has been nominated for an Eisner Award, and won the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize for best web comic in 2012.

Osborne directed the Oscar-winning animated short Feast. It debuted in theaters last fall with Disney's Big Hero 6, for which Osborne served as head of animation. He's also worked on Wreck-It Ralph, Tangled, and Bolt, among other projects. Nimona looks to be his feature directing debut.

Haimes is a former DreamWorks executive who has transitioned into screenwriting. He recently scripted Kubo and the Two Strings, which is Laika's next animated feature. In addition, he wrote the Troll Hunter English-language remake for Neil Marshall to direct.