Look familiar? The opening scene of the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the 2007 memoir by Jordan Belfort, may remind you of another film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, based on a novel about a party-throwing Long Island millionaire with a dubious financial background…

…even though it’s set in a different time period.

The Wolf of Wall Street opens on November 15. Tie-ins in trade paperback (RH/Bantam) and audio (RH Audio; read by Bobby Cannavale) will be released in early October. The original trade paperback edition is still available.

For those who want even more, Belfort wrote a followup, Catching the Wolf of Wall Street: More Incredible True Stories of Fortunes, Schemes, Parties, and Prison, which is still available in trade paperback (RH/Bantam).

That staple of ’80’s and ’90’s childrens book publishing, the Choose Your Own Adventure series, is heading for the big-screen, according to the Hollywood Reporter, with Fox working on a “crossplatform four-quadrant action-adventure franchise.”

Translating that into English, the books may be adapted not only as a movie, but also as a TV show and/or a game and will aim to capture the four major demographics (male/female, over/under 25 years old).

The movie producers will have some choosing to do of their own. The series consists of 185 titles, set in many different places and time periods.

Harry Potter producer David Heyman is reteaming with Emma Watson for an adaptation of a debut novel Queen of the Tearling, Variety reports. The first in a projected trilogy, it is described as a “female-oriented Game of Thrones.”

If that sounds familiar, another production company made a similar comparison when they bought the rights to Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, in April.

HarperCollins announced in February that they had acquired the novel from 35-year-old Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate, Erika Johansen, for publication in 2014. The press release describes the plot,

Set three centuries after a small portion of the human race has populated a landmass that mysteriously emerged in the wake of an environmental catastrophe, the series follows nineteen-year-old princess Kelsea Glynn, who must reclaim her deceased mother’s throne and redeem her kingdom, the Tearling, from forces of corruption and dark magic of The Red Queen, the sorceress-tyrant of the neighboring country, Mortmesne.

Publication information is not available yet.

There are novel adaptations and there are novelizations, but this weekend brings a new twist.

Sofia Coppola’s film, The Bling Ring, opening tomorrow in NY and LA and expanding nationwide next week, is based on a 2010 Vanity Fair story by Nancy Jo Sales, “The Suspects Wore Louboutins,” about a group of affluent Valley kids who stole from celebrity wardrobes. One of the stars is Harry Potter’s Emma Watson.

The article has been expanded and released as 288-page trade paperback (S&S/It; S&S Audio). Reviewing it last week,  People magazine gave  it 3.5 of 4 stars. The Awl calls the book a “Smart-Person Beach Read.”

If your image of Dicken’s Miss Havisham is one of an ancient crone, you are in the majority. When Helena Bonham Carter, who is 46, was approached to play the role in the new adaptation of Great Expectations, she tells the Telegraph, it was “like a slap in the face.”

But the film’s director, Mike Newell (who has led dozens of films, including Four Weddings and a Funeral and the fourth Harry Potter), explained, “if you read the book she’s actually in her 40’s.” She took the role.

Released last fall in the UK, it was recently announced that it will debut in the US this coming October 11th.

Shortly after, another U.K. import, a novel that imagines Havisham’s early life will be released. It’s a fall pick by Kansas City P.L.’s Kaite Stover, who described it at the recent BEA as,

Blending two of the human race’s greatest cultural productions—Dickens and beer—Ronald Frame’s Havisham, (Macmillan/Picador) explores Catherine Havisham’s privileged upbringing as the daughter of a brewer, her jilting at the altar, and her devolution into the bitter, love-scorned woman generations of readers have grown both to loath and ultimately pity. Frame successfully transforms Catherine from simply a bitch into a lover, a child, a mother (of sorts), a sinner, and possibly a saint.

Reviewing it, The Times of London said,

Dickens provided a perfectly adequate backstory for Miss Havisham, but this re-imagining will delight readers who (like another Dickens icon) have always wanted more. You might think you know how it ends, but Frame has a talent for thrilling Victorian melodrama, and he tackles the controversial ending (Dickens wrote two versions) with superb assurance. Best of all, he’ll send you back to the original.

Great Expectations has inspired other spin-offs, most notably, Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs and Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip (which was also made into a movie), but this is the first to be based on Havisham.

The following “featurette” includes a comment by Carter that in Dickens’ novel, “the older generation uses the younger generation to heal their own heart.”

A new documentary about rock ‘n’ roll backup singers, 20 Feet From Stardom features previously “unsung heroes.” One of them, Darlene Love, ended up so far from stardom that she had to clean houses for a living (she eventually won a law suit against Phil Spector for unpaid royalties and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011).

Love is scheduled to appear on several shows this week to promote the film, including The Late Show with David Letterman, Good Morning America and The Today Show. Her 1998 memoir, My Name Is Love, was released last week in trade paperback (HarperCollins/Morrow). Booklist called it “wonderfully informative, with a scintillating soupcon of salaciousnes” and PW said Love’s “sardonic observations border on the hilarious.”

Love appears in the documentary’s trailer.

John Oliver began his stint as host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, replacing Stewart, who is on hiatus from the show to direct a movie.

The film is based on one of the many books Stewart has featured on the show, Maziar Bahari’s memoir, Then They Came for Me, (Random House, 2011), about the author’s imprisonment in Iran. The film, titled Rosewater after the nickname of one of Bahari’s captors, stars Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, whose previous credits include playing Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries.

Below is Stewart’s 2011 interview with Bahari, in which he announces that they are working on the film.

The Daily Show – Exclusive – Maziar Bahari Extended Interview Pt. 1

Below, Stewart gives more background on the project as he signs off for the summer:

The major roles have been cast for HBO’s pilot based on Tom Perrotta’s best selling 2011 novel The Leftovers, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s), according to the Hollywood Reporter. The novel, which examines what happens to those left behind after a rapture-like event, “The Sudden Departure,” is being adapted by Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the TV series Lost.

Stephen King was a fan of the book, reviewing it in the New York Times Book Review.

Justin Theroux will play the books main character, Kevin Garvey. Theroux has appeared in two films by David Lynch, Mulholland Drive, 2001 and Inland Empire, 2006. The public may know him best as Jennifer Aniston’s fiance.

Christopher Eccleston played Doctor Who for 13 episodes in 2005 and will play Matt Jamison, a reverend who, unable to believe that he was left behind, becomes a rapture denier and writes a newsletter revealing dark secrets about the Sudden Departed.

Two of Perrotta’s earlier novels Election (Penguin/Putnam) and Little Children (Macmillan/St. Martin’s) were made into successful movies.

Director Thor Freudenthal (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) replaces Chris Columbus (the first two Harry Potter movies) for the second Percy Jackson movie, which opens on August 7.

Official Web Site: PercyJacksonTheMovie.com

The tie-in edition arrives in July:

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Two The Sea of Monsters (Movie Tie-In Edition), Rick Riordan

Disney/Hyperion, 9781423160076, 142316007X $7.99 US / $8.99 Can

Underscoring the title, the remake of Endless Love, based on the 1979 best seller by Scott Spencer (HarperCollins), has been scheduled to open on 2/14/14.

The original movie was directed by Franco Zeffrelli in 1981 and starred Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt. The new version stars Alex Pettyfer, who starred in two  movies based on teen novels, I Am Number Four and Beastly. and Gabriella Wilde appeared in The Three Musketeers.

The book is also available in e-book from Open Road Media, through library e-book vendors.

It will be a big weekend for book-related movies. Also opening on that date are The Maze Runner and Vampire Academy: Blood Sister.

Claire Danes, who began her career with the realistic portrayal of a teenager in the TV series, My So-Called Life, will soon appear on the big screen as the mother of a teenage girl, in As Cool As I Am, based on a coming-of-age novel by Pete Fromm. Published in 2004, Kirkus said it explores “the sexual evolution of a cynical teenage girl who has the spunk and wit to survive two flaky parents and the urges of unbridled adolescence. ”

The trailer was just released (via Deadline). The movie begins a limited run on June 7.

Tie-in:
As Cool As I Am, Pete Fromm
On Sale Date: June 4, 2013
9781250045577, 1250045576
Paperback / softback / Trade paperback (US)
$16.00 US / $18.50 Can

The long-running 2007 bestseller, Lone Survivor (Hachette/Little, Brown), Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s memoir about how he survived a failed 2005 mission to capture a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, has been adapted as a movie that was just scheduled for release on Jan. 10, 2014.

Directed by Peter Berg (Battleship and Friday Night Lights), it stars Mark Wahlberg as Luttrell with Eric Bana, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster as his fellow SEALs.

Interviewed earlier in Wall Street Journal, Berg said that his research included being embedded with the military in Iraq two years ago. He commented that, after the controversy about military cooperation with filmmakers on Zero Dark Thirty and author Chris Kyle on American Sniper, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2012) that kind of access might not be possible today.

Last month, it was announced that Steven Spielberg will direct a movie based on the latter, starring Bradley Cooper. Production is expected to begin in early 2014, just as Lone Survivor hits theaters.

While F. Scott Fitzgerald is hitting it big at the box office, the hot trailer of the week is based on a book by fellow Hollywood screenwriter, William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying. The movie, which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this month, is directed by James Franco, who also stars. It is not yet scheduled for release in the U.S.

On Saturday, news emerged that Ansel Elgort had been cast to play Gus, the love interest of Shailene Woodley’s Hazel in the upcoming adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, (Penguin/Dutton). Within hours, Green posted a spirited defense of the choice on his Tumblr page.

Green noted, “There seems to be some concern that Ansel and Shailene are playing siblings in a different movie [they are currently filming Divergent, based on the book by Veronica Roth, in Chicago]. I guess I can understand that, but they’re actors … I mean, no one watched Silver Linings Playbook and thought, ‘When did Katniss move to the suburbs of Philadelphia?’”

A reminder: there was considerable consternation when it was announced that blonde Jennifer Lawrence would star as the dark-haired, olive-skinned Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, causing Suzanne Collins to issue a statement in support of the choice. Now it’s hard to imagine anyone else in that role.

Production on The Fault In Our Stars is set to begin in August.

Set to begin shooting in London at the end of the month, Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, the adaptation of the first in a series by Richelle Mead (Penguin/Razorbill), is busily adding new cast members.

The leads were cast in February. Zoey Deutch, who had a supporting role in Beautiful Creatures, will star as Rose Hathaway, newcomer Lucy Fry as Rose’s best friend Lissa, and Russian actor Danila Kozlovsky as Rose’s mentor, Dimitri Belikov.

The latest additions are Sami Gayle, (Blue Bloods, CBS), Cameron Monaghan (Shameless), Ashley Charles (White Buffalo) and Claire Foy (White Heat).

Penguin Teen Australia has created a handy “Vampire Academy Cheat Sheet,” for those who are trying to keep track (link to the site for a larger version).