RELEASE DATE: SUMMER 2024
Jack posts photos every week as he explores Grandfather's estate.
Jack could not have anticipated the excursions he would take beyond his grandfather’s estate to dubious locations in faraway countries using the most empowering relic he would find yet. In his grandfather’s attic, he discovered a coin that would elongate into a telescope through which he would see and find himself in implausible situations. The challenges on the different terrains and in the skies high above them — where he did everything from swing from vines above treacherous waters to jump from an airplane — proved Jack to be mightier than he or any of the bullies at school ever thought. Along with facing fears during encounters with ferocious beasts, Jack also could not have imagined the unlikely but faithful, life-long friend he would meet; just a child herself, she would save his life in the Sahara Desert and accompany him on the rest his journeys. Jack learns that he is worthy of profound friendship.
Through time spent with his grandfather, Jack learned the value of family and trust. Sir Jonathan was the one of the only adults to ever love him and validate his worth, or to take him on childlike adventures, including the circus where he met Smiley, another improbable friend. He encouraged Jack to think but to also follow his heart, to be wild in his imagination, to explore the outdoors and seek out truth, but never to the extent of forgetting what is most important: family.
The Troubles of Jack Barrellbottom
ABOUT JACK
Clumsy, 11-year-old Jack Barrellbottom
leaves the Brownstone where he lives with his mother and stodgy, disagreeable Aunt Melba to visit his grandfather (his father’s father) after receiving a quite peculiar invitation. Jack’s grandfather was the now eccentric, 108-year-old Sir Jonathan Stout Barrellbottom — his father being Jonathan (Jon) Stout Barrellbottom II. A world explorer like Sir Jonathan, he disappeared while trekking through a faraway land when Jack was just three. Bullied in school, Jack was a small, timid child enamored with artifacts he would uncover in a local junk store called Fumblebee’s.
When Jack, his aunt, and his mother arrived at Sir Jonathan’s vast estate, he was enthralled. A grand manor stood in the center of it all. Any trepidation he might have had gave way to intense curiosity. Surrounding the manor was a tall but unkempt statue named Oceanus, a sprawling field with a shimmering body of water in the distance, a boat through which an old Oak tree had grown — lifting it into the air, and most impressive, the great “Mount Olegwasi”.
Inside the manor was a plethora of taxidermy from Sir Jonathan’s worldly conquests in a great room and a grand staircase leading to quarters with dusty sketch books, old photographs of distant travels, and glass cases exhibiting poisonous though shriveled up amphibians. Lest anyone forget, roaming indoors and out was the one-eyed cat named Morpheus. So, when Sir Jonathan invited Jack to spend the whole summer, the answer was easy. Jack had thought the opportunities to explore at Fumblebee’s were countless. Exploration inside and outside of his grandfather’s home, however, would be inconceivable!