I think it’s vaguely whorish that Ridley Scott wants to direct an “Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective” movie. Scott and Howard Deutsch, who owns the rights to the series of novels written by Donald J. Sobol (despite Sobol’s claim in Sharon Waxman’s N.Y. Times piece that the rights will eventually revert to him and anyone who cuts a deal with Deutsch “will be stuck”), are trying to launch another Potter-like tentpole series…and all I see are a couple of guys trying to cash in. I would feel differently if my kids were eight or ten years old, but they’re not and so this franchise, if and when it gets rolling, is going to the top of my list. Sobol’s books (all 23 of them) are about the efforts of 10 year-old Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown and his best bud Sally to solve various mysteries. Waxman’s piece says that “every book has 10 mysteries within it, with solutions printed in the back of the book…readers are challenged to solve the cases using deductive reasoning and careful observation, which has led to the character’s sometimes being referred to as Sherlock Holmes in sneakers.” In other words…hello?…inherently un-thematic, un-cinematic and who-gives-a-toss? Deutsch told Waxman he “envisions the series as more an action-adventure type movie rather than a straight- ahead detective story.” Scott told Waxman that “in the case of ‘Encyclopedia Brown,’ we have a classical hero and heroine who just happen to be kids. They are ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, and that makes these books attractive.” The whole concept makes me want to throw up.