According to Variety, Lions Gate Family Entertainment has unveiled a second animated project on its slate, a bigscreen adaptation of the 1969 kids book "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble."

The pic will be dubbed simply Sylvester. The book concerns a donkey who discovers a wish-granting pebble but accidentally turns himself into a rock and becomes estranged from his family until they find him again.

Unit -- the family arm of Lions Gate Entertainment -- is already in production on its first pic, the 3-D animated film Foodfight!

"Sylvester" book was created by the late William Steig, author of the 1993 book Shrek.

LGFE picked up rights from Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.

The pic goes into active development immediately under division exec veep Ken Katsumoto. Announcement was made by marketing exec veep Anne Parducci and Lions Gate Films releasing prexy Tom Ortenberg.