Disney to Adapt Miye Lee’s The Dallergut Dream Department Store

Disney Live Action has officially picked up the rights to Miye Lee’s hugely popular cosy fantasy The Dallergut Dream Department Store, bringing in Patrick Ness to write the screenplay. The project is being overseen by Disney’s executive vice president of production, Jessica Virtue.

If you have not come across Lee’s international bestseller yet, it is a delightfully quirky tale set in a hidden town within our collective subconscious. The store itself caters to humans and animals alike who shuffle in to buy specific dreams for the night. You can pick up childhood memories, food-filled fantasies, or dreams of loved ones who have passed away. Penny, a fresh recruit at the department store, lands her ideal job working alongside the whimsical store owner Dallergut. However, when strange and dangerous incidents start affecting the sleeping customers, Penny has to solve the mystery behind the disruptions before a nightmare spreads right through the store.

A Cozy Fantasy Hit Goes to Hollywood

The novel has already sold well over a million copies globally, serving as the first instalment in a planned trilogy. It fits neatly into the recent surge of low-stakes, comforting speculative fiction that readers have been devouring over the last few years. Turning that soft, episodic charm into a feature film script requires a careful touch, but hiring Patrick Ness suggests Disney knows exactly what kind of writer this story needs.

Ness is no stranger to translating high-concept, deeply emotional literary ideas for cinema. He previously adapted his own novels A Monster Calls and Chaos Walking for the big screen, alongside writing duties on the Doctor Who spin-off series Class. If you ask me, Ness is a remarkably safe pair of hands when it comes to preserving the emotional heart of a book while making the necessary structural tweaks for a two-hour movie. We have seen plenty of page-to-screen translations struggle when moving from prose to pictures, but his past work shows he understands how screenplays function without stripping away a story’s soul. When looking at adaptations that tweak the source material effectively, having the original author or an experienced novelist at the keyboard usually makes all the difference.

What to Expect from the Live-Action Feature

This news places The Dallergut Dream Department Store alongside a growing wave of high-profile literary properties making the leap to cinema, following announcements like Daisy Edgar-Jones starring in the Tomorrow and Tomorrow film. Fantasy readers have spent the last few years watching dark, politically heavy sagas dominate television development, so seeing a studio bet on a light, imaginative concept about buying dreams feels like a welcome change of pace.

Because the project is still in its earliest stages of development, Disney has not yet attached a director or announced any casting decisions. Production dates and release windows are also under wraps for now. Given that the book offers a colourful cast ranging from nightmare producers to flamboyant store owners, casting will be crucial in getting the tone right. For now, fantasy fans can rest easy knowing the script is in capable hands.