Hitting Screens, Week of March 14, 2016
There is plenty to watch next week, with six adaptations airing on screens big and small.
The newcomers arrive after a so-so week for books to screen performances. Season 2 of Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s character, got little attention and the reviewers who did take note offered warm, but not glowing, praise.
Forbes panned The Young Messiah, based on Anne Rice’s Christ The Lord: Out Of Egypt, (RH/Knopf, 2005) saying “the writer-director is either grossly pandering to his perceived audience, or has forgotten how to make a movie.”
Next week’s hopefuls are:
Allegiant, part one of the last in the film adaptations of Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, opens March 18 and is already taking hits.
Variety says: “Allegiant will seem awfully meager to those who so recently feasted on … countless other superior examples of the genre.”
Like so many YA adaptations, it will be split in half with the second part due in the summer of 2017.
Tie-ins came out in mid February: Allegiant Movie Tie-in Edition (Harper/Katherine Tegen Books; HarperCollins Audio; OverDrive Sample; in paperback as well).
Next up in the running for the Easter movie to see is Miracles from Heaven, the inspirational story of a young girl inexplicably cured from a terminal illness. It is also getting a lot of buzz with Jennifer Garner on the cover of the most recent issue of Vanity Fair. People has also featured the film.
Tie-ins came out a few weeks ago: Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl and Her Amazing Story of Healing, Christy Wilson Beam (Hachette Books; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample; also in Mass Market). The movie opens March 16.
It is a busy week for adaptations. Here is a run-down on the rest:
The Little Prince, based on the beloved novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is getting praise for its fresh approach. While not a straight adaptation, there are tie-ins, The Little Prince Family Storybook: Unabridged Original Text and The Little Prince Read-Aloud Storybook: Abridged Original Text
(both HMH Books for Young Readers). The film opens in limited release on the 18th, and goes wide on the 25th.
And Then There Were None is a BBC/Lifetime three-episode adaptation of Agatha Christie’s famous novel. It begins airing on March 14. There is a tie-in: And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (Harper/William Morrow Paperbacks; OverDrive Sample).
A.V. Club is already a fan, calling it “note-perfect” and saying “if you’re looking for an unabashedly bloodstained gothic take on pre-war psychological horror that locks 10 great actors in a room and makes them battle it out … are you ever in luck.”
Season two of Netflix’s Daredevil starts up again on March 18. There is not a direct tie-in but there are plenty of comics. Reading guides are offered by the sites Comic Book Hero and Comic Vine.
The Program, a biopic about Lance Armstrong with Ben Foster playing the role of the disgraced cyclist, premieres March 18. Although it is an adaptation of David Walsh’s 2013 book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, there is no US tie-in edition.