Hitting Screens, Week of June 20
The Free State of Jones leads the book-to-screen lineup this week with the Matthew McConaughey vehicle, set during the American Civil War, opening in wide release beginning June 23.
The movie recounts the true-life events of a Mississippi farmer who lead a band of rebels against the Confederate army. It is a rarity, an adaptation of a university press book, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War, Victoria E. Bynum (U. of N. Carolina Press), with a tie-in featuring a new afterward by Bynum.
Also on June 23, Queen of the South starts its run on the USA Network, adapting Arturo Perez-Reverte’s story of female drug lords. The novel on which it is based, Queen of the South (PRH/Plume; OverDrive Sample), first published in 2005, now features new cover art advertising the show.
The novel has been adapted previously, as La Reina del Sur, which aired in 2011 on Telemundo (the American Spanish-language network owned by NBCUniversal).
The series is #4 on People magazine’s picks for the week, calling it a “satisfyingly pulpy melodrama.”
On June 24 The Fundamentals of Caring comes to Netflix. Staring Paul Rudd, Craig Roberts, and Selena Gomez, the film is based on The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison (Workman/Algonquin Books; OverDrive Sample). No new tie-in is available for the road-trip story of a teen with muscular dystrophy and his down-on-his-luck care giver, but the 2013 paperback now has cover art promoting the movie.
The film got nods at Sundance but as Variety reports, the market for indie self-actualization films has fallen: “Indie-comedy cliches get a crowdpleasing workout … but the theatrical market isn’t what it used to be … Already acquired by Netflix for SVOD [streaming video on demand] in a pricey pre-fest pick-up, that venue sounds like the best bet to connect with audiences.”