The Jim Henson Company are bringing the world of Tom Holt to the big screen in the fantasy adventure The Portable Door, starring Sam Neill and Christoph Waltz. Co-financed by Story Bridge Films, the movie will be the first time one of Holt's fantast novels has been adapted for screen. The film was first announced back in February 2020, when it was revealed that the Henson Company were developing the project, but it now seems to be moving along at pace.

In a statement last year, Lisa Henson, CEO of the Jim Henson Company, said, "We were especially drawn to the crowd-pleasing franchise potential of The Portable Door, with its relatable, gritty humor made popular in shows like The Office, and its rich, Harry Potter-like, high-fantasy setting. Once we were able to entice accomplished and versatile director Jeffrey Walker to join the project, we knew we had someone perfectly suited to pull together this unique tone and ground the film for its audience."

The synopsis of The Portable Door, which is the first book in a series of seven novels about a company called JW Wells & Co, reads, "Starting a new job is always stressful (especially when you don't particularly want one), but when Paul Carpenter arrives at the office of J.W. Wells he has no idea what trouble lies in store. Because he is about to discover that the apparently respectable establishment now paying his salary is in fact a front for a deeply sinister organization that has a mighty peculiar agenda. It seems that half the time his bosses are away with the fairies. But they're not, of course...They're away with the goblins."

Christoph Waltz will play the charismatic villain Humphrey Wells, the CEO of J.W. Wells & Co, who is disrupting the world of magic by applying a modern corporate strategy to ancient magic practices. When it was first announced, the movie was also expected to star Guy Pearce in the role of Dennis Tanner, a shape-shifting Goblin unable to escape being middle-management at the company, but due to a scheduling conflict he had to pull out, with his role being taken over by Sam Neill. Paul Gibson stars as the movie's protagonist, Paul Carpenter.

The movie is being released as a Sky Original in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Italy, while in Australia, where the movie is being filmed, it will be given a theatrical release and then will move to streaming on Stan. The rest of the cast includes Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings), Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians), Jessica De Gouw (Gretel & Hansel), Rachel House (Thor: Ragnarok), Arka Das (Mulan), Damon Herriman (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and newcomer Sophie Wilde.

Holt's fantasy novels have been one of the rivals to Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels since the late 1980s, and it is questionable why it has taken so long to bring some of his work to the screen. With the Jim Henson Company behind the project, having recently produced The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance for Netflix to rave reviews, one thing guaranteed is that the movie is in good hands and will certainly bring the magical and exciting world of Tom Holt to life in a way that few others could. The movie is expected to be released some time next year.