When major studios begin erecting a tentpole property, they aren’t buying a film. They’re buying a pilot. The measuring stick quantifying a film’s box-office success has now moved; it’s no longer sufficient for an ambitious project to rake in a respectable payday. It’s only a true-blue success story if it spawns three more movies (and the third movie is split into two movies), and each one grosses bajillions of dollars. The big picture in studio executives’ minds has only gotten bigger, and franchise options now dictate the sorts of properties that do or do not make it out of the developmental stages.

With visions of franchise dollars dancing in their heads, higher-ups at Paramount have laid claim to Kate Milford’s novel The Greenglass House, Deadline reports. Published in August 2014, the book tells the story of 12-year-old Milo, the adopted son of the innkeepers at the titular stopover. The flow of guests usually ebbs during the winter months, until a surprising influx of visitors turns Milo’s life upside down. As more and more secretive travelers flood the inn, Milo falls into an alliance with the resident cook’s daughter, Meddy, and uncovers a mystery that links all the tenants and the august establishment. I haven’t had the chance to read the book, but I imagine something that replicates the hustle and bustle of The Grand Budapest Hotel with Hugo’s spirit of wide-eyed childhood adventure. 

Though Paramount hasn’t revealed a director for the film yet, it’s landed buzzy scribe Joe Ballarini, already slated for upcoming films about monster-battling babysitters and little ponies of the magic-friendship variety, to adapt the novel for the screen. In a period of big-budget spectacle filmmaking, Greenglass seems like a refreshingly modest take on the youngster-adventure genre. If all goes well, the prospect of built-in sequels might not be so icky after all.