Derek Landy (born 23 October 1974) is an Irish author and screenwriter, best known for the Skulduggery Pleasant and Demon Road book series. Since 2018, he has also written numerous comic book series at Marvel Comics.
Landy has written two screenplays that have been made into films, the IFTA award-winning Dead Bodies and the IFTA-nominated Boy Eats Girl starring Samantha Mumba. Landy himself was nominated for an IFTA for Best Script.[citation needed]
Frustrated with the collaborative process of filmmaking, Landy moved on to writing the Skulduggery Pleasant series, starting with the novel of the same name.[1] The novel was published by HarperCollins, who paid £1.8 million for the publishing rights,[2] growing to comprise a nine-book series, a six-book sequel series, a spin-off, and a prequel, with a third (three-book) series in development.
In 2007, he signed a deal with Warner Bros. worth an estimated US$1.1 million for the rights to adapt his Skulduggery Pleasant series, which he intended to adapt himself.[3] However, his script was constantly rewritten and Landy, unhappy with the results, bought back the rights. He sold the rights to another company which could not make it, then worked with another company that "petered out". As of 2020, he was working on an adaptation with an undisclosed film making company.[4]
Landy wrote a short story based on the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who as part of a short story collection celebrating the show's 50th anniversary. The story was published by Puffin in 2013, titled "The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage". Landy was consequentially hired to write an episode for the second series of the Doctor Who spinoff Class, only for the series to be cancelled before the episode he wrote could be produced.[6]
In a review of his first book, Skulduggery Pleasant, Sarah Webb of the Irish Independent wrote that it "is taut, full of zippy dialogue and fantastical visuals".[2]
In 2008, Landy won the Red House Children's Book Award.[8]Playing with Fire, Mortal Coil and Last Stand of Dead Men each won the senior Irish Children's Book Award, in 2009, 2010 and 2013.[9] In addition in 2010 Skulduggery Pleasant (Sceptre of the Ancients) was voted as Irish book of the decade.[10]
