Publishers Weekly is reporting that the recent Disney film Race to Witch Mountain is pushing the reprinting of the original Escape to Witch Mountain novel by Alexander Key (it first appeared in 1968 from the now-defunct Westminster Press). McIntosh & Otis, the agency overseeing the Key estate, has now sold reprint rights to the novel to Sourcebooks.
Sourcebooks plans to release a paperback edition of the book to coincide with Disney’s DVD release of the new movie, although the date hasn’t yet been set. McIntosh & Otis said they’re discussing with Disney the possibility of using a tie-in cover for the book.
Prior to the current Dwayne Johnson vehicle, the book saw screen time as a 1975 Disney feature (Escape to Witch Mountain), and two sequels, the 1978 Return from Witch Mountain, and the 1982 tv movie Beyond Witch Mountain. There was also a 1995 made-for-tv movie called, again, Escape to Witch Mountain.
The novel apparently fell out of print sometime in the late 1980s, although the agent isn’t quite sure when (they did note that Pocket published a paperback edition at some time). Alexander Key (1904-79) wrote nearly twenty novels, most for children, many of them sf.