'Walter the Farting Dog' heads for Hollywood

Last Updated: Friday, August 27, 2004 | 11:00 AM ET

CBC Arts

There'll be a new hound in Hollywood as the authors of the best-selling Walter the Farting Dog series have signed over the movie rights to their gassy, fictional mutt.

Several producers had approached Glenn Murray and Bill Kotzwinkle about turning their creation into an animated movie or television show, but the cross-border collaborators didn't want Walter to be a cartoon.

They then received an offer from New Line Cinema, the company that produced the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, for a live-action film.

Fredericton writer Glenn Murray holds up one of his best selling Walter, the Farting Dog books (CP PHOTO)

Murray, a Fredericton-based writer and educational technology supervisor, is excited about the prospect.

"We just signed the contract less than two weeks ago," he said. "I had to sign in 25 places and a notary had to seal it in 16 places. It was a massive document, so it covers everything, you know."

The screenwriter hasn't been named yet, but it won't be Murray or Kotzwinkle, a writer living in Maine. New Line will select a Hollywood writer for the job, which entails translating the three Walter books into movie form.

"They've got the rights to the first three books and they're sort of putting their own story together from that," Murray said.

"I used to think Bill Murray should play Walter without a costume because he sort of has that bumbling, apologetic look to him when he wants to."

• FROM APR. 23, 2004: 'Farting Dog' teaches tolerance: author

The best-selling books about the dog with an uncontrollable and unpleasant bodily function have already been translated into about 14 languages, including Latin, French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Hebrew.

"It's not just (for) kids, he is the people's farting dog now, comrade," Murray said. "I'm just his agent in the world."