The cult favorite, Veronica Mars TV series, starring Kristen Bell as a teenage sleuth, was canceled after its third season in 2007. Since then, creator Rob Thomas has not allowed the property to die. Through a Kickstarter campaign, (the most successful one to date), he raised the funds for a movie version. He also signed with RH/Vintage for two books based on the character (he has written several novels, including the 1996 YA title Rats Saw God).

The movie debuts on March 14 (see trailer below) and the first book, Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line, which features the 28-year-old Mars after the events of the movie, arrives on March 25. It is currently at #29 and rising on Amazon sales rankings.

To catch up on the story, link here.

Also on the horizon is a collection of essays in the Wiley-Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, coming in May, Veronica Mars and Philosophy: Investigating the Mysteries of Life (Which is a Bitch Until You Die), edited by George A. Dunn.

Just one movie adapted from a book won in the top six Oscar categories, but it won big. 12 Years a Slave was named Best Picture and Lupita Nyong’o, Best Supporting Actress. It also won for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Director McQueen’s speech included a shout-out to the woman who made sure Solomon Northup’s story wasn’t forgotten; “I’d like to thank this amazing historian, Sue Eakin … she gave her life’s work to preserving Solomon’s book.”  Eaken is no longer alive, but her son, Frank, was a guest of the director at the film’s premiere. He also produced an audio of the book narrated by  Louis Gossett Jr. (Blackstone).

McQueen spoke about the book on last week’s CBS Sunday Morning:

The only other adaptation to win awards was The Great Gatsby, which won for both Best Costume and Best Production Design.

Darlene Love, one of the subjects of 20 Feet From Stardom, received a standing ovation after she sang her acceptance for Best Documentary. Love’s 1998 autobiography, My Name Is Love: The Darlene Love Story, (re-released in trade paperback last year by HarperCollins/Morrow), has been acquired by OWN for a television movie.

The Academy Awards, (aka, the “Newbery/Caldecotts of the film business” ), will be announced on Sunday.

With so many book adaptations in the running, rather than join the predictions game, we’ve decided to create our own EarlyWord Awards.

Movie That Created A Classic — 12 Years a Slave 

Director Steve McQueen exaggerates when he claims  the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup that his movie is based on was “lost for 150 years.” McQueen, who is nominated for Best Director, owes a debt to a 12-year-old girl, Sue Eakin, who came across an old copy of it in the 1930’s and made it her life’s work to bring it back into print. Since it was republished in 1968 through LSU Press, it has been released in several editions and has continued in print due to college adoptions. The movie has brought unprecedented awareness, however, and the book is now also being picked up by high schools.

Movie That Made a Bestseller of A Classic — The Great Gatsby

This could also be called the movie that made publishers rethink tie-ins, since the sales of copies with the original cover outstripped those that feature the movie art.

Not only did director Baz Luhrman’s movie, which is nominated only for Best Costume and Best Production Design, put F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel onto best seller lists (which, to Fitzgerald’s vast disappointment, didn’t happen in his own day), it even inspired Stephen Colbert to go all Oprah and begin his own book club, which included a discussion led by Jennifer Egan.

That magic did not happen for other classics made into movies this year. William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (movie by James Franco) and Henry James’s What Maisie Knew (movie starring Julianne Moore, Alexander Skarsgård and Steve Coogan) did not lead to best seller status for those books.

Movie That Brought A Book To The U.S. For The First Time — Philomena

Directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen), this movie is up for an Oscar for Best Picture. It is also nominated for Best Actress for star Judi Dench who plays Philomena Lee, an Irish woman forced as a teenager to give her child up for adoption. Originally published in the U.K. in 2010 as The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, it was published for the first time in the U.S. this year as a trade paperback tie-in, titled Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search  (Penguin), with a foreword by Dench.

And, a special award for:

Most Bookish Actress— Jennifer Lawrence

From Winter’s Bone, based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, for which she was nominated in 2011 as Best Actress, to the as-yet-unreleased Serena, based on the novel by Ron Rash, Lawrence has appeared in many book adaptations.

This year, she is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for American Hustle, based on the nonfiction title, The Sting Man: Inside Abscam by Robert W. Greene. The movie is sure to win at least one award, since it is nominated in every major category (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, as well as Best Supporting Actress).

On to the real Oscars and may the best books win.

With the Oscars  coming on Sunday, you’d expect this week’s  issue of Entertainment Weekly to be all about that event.

But that was so last week. The new cover story declares that all eyes are now on Divergent, opening 3/21, to see if it will follow in the footsteps of Hunger Games, or will bite the dust like Beautiful Creatures (and Mortal Instruments and Vampire Academy).

If book sales are any indicator, it will be an enormous hit. All three titles in Veronica Roth’s YA series have been in the top ten on USA Today‘s best-selling books list for weeks. This week they are all in the top five.

The fall brings two more YA dystopian novel adaptations. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, of course, arrives in theaters on Nov. 21 and is pre-ordained hit.

There’s been far less buzz about the second, The Maze Runner, based on the book by James Dashner. Originally scheduled for Valentine’s Day, it was then moved to September 19. Beyond a few set photos, there’s been little to feed fan anticipation. All of this makes one movie site more than a little worried about its future.

The movie adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 detective novel Inherent Vice (Penguin Press) has just been scheduled for Dec. 12 of this year, which Deadline characterizes as “a plum awards-season release date.” Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), the movie stars Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson and Benecio Del Toro.

Also releasing that day is the live-action childrens adaptation, Paddington, “inspired by” the 1958 series which begins with A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond. It is being reissued in July by HarperCollins with illustrations by R.W. Alley and the shortened movie title of simply Paddington.

Baby Gap is also featuring tie-ins in the form of a clothing line.

Several new projects have the name R.L. Stine attached. MTV has picked up a 10-episode series based on his title for adults, Eye Candy (RH/Ballantine, 2004; cover, above; initial series logo to right, featuring a shot of Brooklyn’s trendy DUMBO neighborhood).

The pilot was directed by Catherine Hardwicke (the first Twilight movie), who is exec. producer of the series. It stars Victoria Justice as a hacker being pursued by a cyber stalker (The Hollywood Reporter, 2/11/14). No news yet on when it will premiere.

A new film adaptation of his Goosebumps series (Scholastic) is gearing up for production, as evidenced by several new casting announcements. The latest addition is Dylan Minnette, to co-star with Jack Black, who was announced back in September. Minette will play Zach Cooper, who moves with his family to a new town where their neighbor is, in a twist, R.L. Stine himself (played by Black). Odeya Rush is set to play Stine’s niece Hannah.

Meanwhile, Scholastic recently relaunched the Goosebumps series, with Goosebumps Most Wanted (Scholastic)  which Stine describes as “a new book series featuring all of my most-wanted villains and most-wanted stories.”

His Fear Street series is also set for relaunch (the result of a Twitter campaign), beginning with Party Games in October from Macmillan/St. Martin’s.

UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly previews the cover of Party Games (at right)

New Zealand is playing the role of the American Midwest for the adaptation of Robert O’Brien’s 1974 YA novel, Z For Zachariah, reports the New Zealand newspaper, The Press.

Starring are Australian Margot Robbie, (The Wolf of Wall Street; much is being made about the 23-year-old  going  brunette for the role, but not about her playing a 16-year-old), Chris Pine (Star Trek; Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave).

The movie, directed by Craig Zobel, is based on the Newbery Medalist (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, 1971) final book, published after his death. It features a teenage girl, trying to survive on her own after a nuclear war.

Italian director Luca Guadagnino (who directed I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton) has  signed to direct a movie based on Robert Goolrick’s debut bestseller, A Reliable Wife,(Workman/Algonquin, 2009). No roles have been cast yet, but according to Deadline, “The lead role has been eyed as catnip for actresses. Production is planned to begin next winter.

The movie version of Lisa Genova’s 2008 best seller, Still Alice, (S&S/Gallery) is about to begin shooting, reveals one of the movie’s stars, Kate Bosworth who told E! News Online on Wednesday, “I am shooting a movie here in New York called Still Alice with Julianne Moore. I am really excited! It’s one of my favorite novels.”

News surfaced recently that the majority of the main cast is in place (The Wrap, 1/28/14). Moore stars as Alice, a professor of neuroscience with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Kristen Stewart will play Lydia, her younger daughter, with Alec Baldwin as her husband, John, and Bosworth as her older daughter, Anna. Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland will direct (they have co-directed several other movies, including Quinceañera, 2006).

Genova, a neuroscientist herself, self-published the novel in 2007. After it was rereleased by S&S in 2008, it spent 41 weeks on the NYT best seller in hardcover and paperback. She has published two novels since, both with S&S, Left Neglected and Love Anthony.

In the video below, Genova talks about the real-life inspiration for Still Alice.

A rave in The Telegraph for The Two Faces of January, starring Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Monday, will frustrate U.S. audiences. The movie is scheduled for release in the U.K. in May, but there is no U.S. release date yet. The reviewer calls it “the best Patricia Highsmith adaptation since The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) … an elegantly pleasurable period thriller, a film of tidy precision and class … a treat to look at and listen to, evoking a lot of old-fashioned movie virtues, and showing us a lush but suspenseful good time.”

The Hollywood Reporter tamps down that enthusiasm, “it’s unlikely that the directing debut of screenwriter Hossein Amini (Jude, Drive) is going to knock The Talented Mr. Ripley from its pedestal in the Highsmith pantheon, or even jar it slightly. Still the production … is truly lush and the actors … almost too subtle and nuanced for the roles they play. The result is easy viewing that should have a nice small screen life after Studio Canal releases theatrically in the UK, France, Australia and related territories.”

Grove Press will release a new trade paperback edition of the book in June (new cover above, right), part of a program to reissue all the Highsmith books in their catalog.

For an appreciation of Highsmith’s work, see Jonathan Lethem’s Washington Post review of the  2009 biography of the author.

The young star of The Book Thief, Sophie Nelisse is set to play the title role in The Great Gilly Hopkins, based on Katherine Paterson’s middle grade novel.

Also signed for the film are Glenn Close, Kathy Bates, Danny Glover and Octavia Spencer. To be directed by Stephen Herek,  it is scheduled to begin shooting on April 9, according to Variety.

The book was a Newbery Honor winner in 1979, the year after Paterson won the Newbery Medal for Bridge to Terabithia.(also made into a film, which Variety notes, grossed ore than $200 million worldwide). In 1981, she won the Newbery for Jacob I Have Loved.

Two movies that are widely expected to become blockbusters arrive in theaters today. However well they fare at the box office, they have already sent related books into Amazon’s top ten. For adults, there’s George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. For kids, it’s The LEGO Movie. 

#7 The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, (Hachette/Back Bay)

#8 The LEGO Ideas Book, Daniel Lipkowitz, (Penguin/DK) —  Even though the Junior Novel tie-in (Scholastic) appeared on last week’s NYT Middle Grade list, it’s only at #474 on Amazon’s rankings. It seems kids, or at least their parents, are more interested in creating their own LEGO worlds, than in reading tie-ins.

Fortunately, there are many more titles you can pull out of the stacks that relate to both movies.  For Monuments Men, see our earlier post. And, of course, there are dozens of LEGO titles, including Lisa’s favorites.

The junior novel tie-in to the Lego movie landed at #4 on the NYT Middle Grade best seller list last week, so we probably don’t need to remind you that the movie opens tomorrow.

Download our LEGO tie-ins spreadsheet. Also, see Lisa’s list of her favorite LEGO titles here.

Below is the clip that accompanies the NYT review of the movie (try hitting refresh if the video doesn’t load):

Dean Koontz fans have been frustrated by news that the movie of Odd Thomas (RH/Bantam, 2003) was finished, but was being held up by various legal wrangles.

It suddenly appeared On Demand last week through most cable providers, is being released next week through rental sources like iTunes, and on DVD and BluRay on 3/25 (see Dean Koontz’s site for a full rundown). It will have a limited theatrical release on 2/28.

A paperback movie tie in was planned, but is now cancelled; movie art will be included in the ebook. More on the book series here.

Below is the trailer, with Anton Yelchin starring as Odd.

Stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James kicked off the marketing campaign for Divergent, which arrives in theaters on March 21, by introducing the movie’s second and final trailer on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday night. Tie-ins in hardcover and paperback, (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen), release next week.

Woodley, considered to be “on the verge of genuine stardom,” can also be seen in the recently released trailers for The Fault in Our Stars, coming in June, and for White Bird in a Blizzard, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as in last year’s The Spectacular Now, recently released on DVD.

All four movies are based on books (White Bird in a Blizzard by Laura Kasischke, was published by Hyperion in 1999).