The first adaptation of a novel by Laura Lippman, Every Secret Thing is filming this month in New York City and on Long Island, which is a bit surprising, since, like Lippman’s other novels, this one is set in Baltimore (in reviewing it, the Baltimore Sun said that “Baltimoreans will relish insiderish elements of the story”).

The novel is Lippman’s first standalone, after having already achieved success with seven mysteries featuring private investigator and former Baltimore reporter, Tess Monaghan. Turning from mysteries to much darker psychological suspense, she writes about two young women who return to their Baltimore neighborhood after seven years in juvenile detention, sentenced for kidnapping a baby who died in their care. Perhaps coincidentally, other children begin to disappear. Lippman builds suspense as the reader tries to figure out who is responsible.

Lippman has continued writing both Tess Monaghan mysteries and standalones. In a review of her most recent title, And When She Was Good, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2012), the NYT‘s Janet Maslin pronounced that “Ms. Lippman’s stand-alone novels have been much more nuanced and interesting than her Monaghan books.”

Directed by Amy Berg, the film stars Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald as the two young women. Also in the cast are Elizabeth Banks and Diane Lane.

Deadline reports today that film rights to the self-published inspirational 2007 blockbuster (later picked up by Hachette/Grand Central) The Shack have been acquired f by Summit Entertainment.

Gill Netter has signed on as the producer. He most recently produced the Ocsar-winning adaptation of Yan Martel’s Life Of Pi, a project he worked on for over a decade before it became a reality.
 

The Weinstein Company has picked up distribution rights to a movie based on Suite Francaise (Random House), the novel by Irène Némirovsky, which became a surprise hit when it was published in 2004, more than 60 years after the author’s death in Auschwitz.

The film, which is about to begin production, is directed by Saul Dibb. Set during the Occupation of France, it stars Michelle Williams as Lucille, a young French woman who has an affair with a German officer, played by Matthias Schoenaerts. Kristin Scott Thomas will play Lucille’s mother-in-law. Shooting is set to begin in France in late June.

Veronica Roth’s dystopian YA trilogy began with Divergent, continued with Insurgent and will end with Allegiant (HarperCollins/Tegen; Dreamscape audio; both, 10/22/13). The author revealed the title in a video on the USA Today Web Site just before midnight yesterday.

This is a good opportunity to offer lessons in the spelling of suffixes (some tips here).

The film adaptation of the Divergent began shooting earlier this month in Chicago, starring Shailene Woodley as Tris. Ashley Judd recently joined the cast to play her mother and Tony Goldwyn is in talks to play her father.

DivergentOfficial.com

Facebook/DivergentSeries

The adaptation of  Joseph Finder’s thriller, Paranoia (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2004), originally scheduled for release in October has been moved up to Aug. 16. Below is more background on the novel from our earlier post.

Described as a “high-tech corporate espionage thriller,” the movie features an impressive cast, including Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford, Amber Heard (The Rum Diary), and Richard Dreyfuss.

The plot concerns an ambitious young technologist, Adam (Hemsworth), who, after making a major misstep is blackmailed by his ruthless CEO (Gary Oldman) into spying on the company’s top rival, run by a character played by Harrison Ford. Adam finds himself living the life of his dreams, as a rich, successful young Manhattan bachelor but eventually has to find a way out from under his boss, “who will stop at nothing, even murder, to gain a multi-billion dollar advantage.”

After four spy thrillers, (including High Crimes, which was made into a movie in 2002, starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman), Joseph Finder began specializing in corporate espionage with the release of Paranoia, which was his breakout book. His most recent novels are the first two in a series, featuring Nick Heller; Vanished (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2009) and Buried Secrets (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2011).

The author notes on his blog that he doesn’t plan to write a sequel to Paranoia, but tells readers (take note, Hollywood) that if they like that book’s main character, they will like his new series character.

Just released, the trailer for Romeo and Juliet with script by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes.

Starring Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) and Douglas Booth as the title characters, it also features Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence. It opens in the UK on Oct. 25. A US release date has not been set.

No more mini-teasers. Here’s the first full-length trailer for The Hunger Games 2, which debuted on the MTV Movie Awards last night.

Last summer’s big debut from Random House was The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, a crossover sci-fi novel about a girl growing up at the time of a developing disaster caused by the gradual slowing of the earth’s rotation. It became a librarian favorite and went on to appear on several best books lists.

Optioned before publication, the next step in the often rocky road to the screen has been announced; Catherine Hardwicke is now set to direct the adaptation. Hardwicke directed the first Twilight movie, as well as Red Riding Hood, Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown and was attached to direct The Maze Runner, but Word & Film reports she left that project in favor of The Age of Miracles. The Maze Runner is now moving ahead with Wes Ball as director.

Hardwicke was also once attached to direct a movie based on Gayle Foreman’s If I Stay, but that project is now in limbo. In January, the author told  Entertainment Weekly that Chloe Moretz might star, but admitted, “I feel like Hollywood is that boyfriend that keeps breaking my heart … I’ve heard things about dates and pre-production about when things were happening, but there’s been nothing that’s been certain. And I’ve heard it so many times before I don’t know.” Meanwhile, Moretz, who stars in the upcoming new adaptation of Carrie, is in talks to join Charlize Theron in the film of Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places.

In case you’ve had trouble imagining Michael Douglas as Liberace, below is a glimpse via the first trailer for HBO’s biopic about the entertainer, Behind the Candelabra.

Premiering on HBO on May 26th, it also stars Matt Damon as Liberace’s lover, Scott Thorson. It is based on Thorson’s 1988 memoir, Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, which is being re-released by Tantor Audio in print, as well as audio and ebook on May 2.

The third trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of The Great Gatsby focuses on the story’s romanticism (compare it to the previous trailer here). Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Isla Fisher, Joel Edgerton and Jason Clarke, it opens May 10.

We’d love to know what Roger Ebert, who died yesterday, would have thought of this. He wasn’t much of a fan of the 1974 adaptation, starring Robert Redford, calling it a “superficially beautiful hunk of a movie with nothing much in common with the spirit of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s novel.” He was a fan of Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, which he gave 3.5 stars out of 4, saying it is constructed  with “the melodrama of a 19th century opera, the Technicolor brashness of a 1950s Hollywood musical and the quick-cutting frenzy of a music video … like the fevered snapshots created by your imagination before an anticipated erotic encounter.”

The trade paperback tie-in arrives on 4/23 (S&S/Scribner).

The second adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror story, Carrie, arrives in theaters in Oct. 18. The first trailer was released yesterday. Directed by Kimberly Peirce, it stars Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role and Julianne Moore as her mother.

Brian De Palma directed the original adaptation in 1976, with Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as her mother. Roger Ebert, who died yesterday, was a fan.

Official Movie Site: Carrie-Movie.com

Tie-ins from RH/Vintage release Sept. 24 in mass market, audio (Sissy Spacek narrates) and Spanish-language editions.

The movie of The Host by Stephanie Meyer, which opened last week, may be considered a flop, but don’t tell the tie-in book edition (Hachette, Back Bay) — it rises to #2 on the new USA Today‘s best seller list.

It’s just a reminder that box office and tie-in success do not necessarily correlate.

Nicole Kidman is “braving the cold” in London during production of the film adaptation of Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, (Harper, 2011), according to UK news reports.

The book, a debut mystery, received early buzz from librarians on GalleyChat months before publication. It went on to hit best seller lists, rising to #7 on the NYT list for a week.

Originally scheduled for late 2013, reports now say it’s due in 2014. Directed by Rowan Joffe (28 Weeks Later, The American, Brighton Rock), it also stars Colin Firth and Mark Strong.

Director Peter Jackson takes questiosn about the second Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug coming December 13 and gives a few (very few) glimpses of some of the footage in the following video [UPDATE: video has been removed].

One of the questions comes from Stephen Colbert who proves he is a Hobbit nerd. Jackson responds in kind, spending an inordinate amount of time asking Colbert a question about his show.

We have learned to adjust to the concept of a premiere for a movie trailer. Now things have gone a crazy step further, a teaser for a teaser.

The teaser for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire debuts on April 14 during the MTV Movie Awards at 9 p.m. ET. Below is the teaser for that teaser (warning: even for a teaser, it’s pretty slight). The movie releases on Nov. 22.

Official Site: TheHungerGamesExplorer.com