The new issue of Entertainment Weekly, which arrives on stands tomorrow, features Catching Fire‘s Jennifer Lawrence on the cover, along with newcomer to the group, Sam Claflin (Snow White and the Huntsman) as Finnick Odair. The EW site also posts three shots from the movie.

Some online reactions already object to the choice of Claflin for the role of Finnick,  (meanwhile, the crowd that originally objected to Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss has fallen silent; Hunger Games swept the People’s Choice Awards last night).

Director Francis Lawrence, also a newcomer to the group, having taken over from Hunger Games’ Gary Ross, is interviewed about his vision for the film in the issue.

Catching Fire will be released on Nov. 21.

After successful showings in New Mexico in September, the indie film adaptation of Rudolfo Anya’s 1972 novel, Bless Me, Ultima, (Hachette/Grand Central), expands to over 200 U.S. theaters on February 22nd.

Official Web site: www.BlessMeUltima.com

The trailer calls the book “controversial.” While it has been removed from high school classrooms in some areas of the country, it is also one of the titles on the NEA’s Big Read list and has been picked by many “one community read” programs.

The film adaptation of Veronica Roth’s popular Divergent (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen, 2011) is scheduled for release on March 21, 2014. The female lead has been cast (Shailene Woodley, who received acclaim for her supporting role as one of George Clooney’s daughters in The Descendants and starred in the TV series, The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and the director has been named (Neil Burger), but the male lead, which Variety says is currently “considered one of the more sought-after roles for a young actor” has not yet been decided.

The three leading contenders, according to Variety are Alex Pettyfer, Jeremy Irvine and Lucas Till. Shooting begins this March in Chicago

Meanwhile, Roth is hard at work on the final novel in the trilogy, which will be released sometime in the fall of 2013 but does not yet have a title (Roth insists on her blog that it will NOT be Detergent). The second book in the series, Insurgent, came out in May, 2012.

Those eagerly anticipating the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror novel, Carrie, will have to wait a bit longer; the release date has been moved from March to the classic month for horror, October, debuting on the 18th. That is the same date as the release of another big book-to-movie title, The Seventh Son, based on Joseph Delaney’s Revenge of the Witch, the first title in the Last Apprentice series (HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2005). Curiously Julianne Moore stars in both, as Carrie’s deranged mother in the former and as Mother Malkin, “the most evil witch in the world.” in the latter.

The original 1976 adaptation of Carrie was directed by suspense specialist, Brian De Palma. This time out, the movie is in the hands of  a female director, Kimberly Peirce, whose feature debut was the 1999 Boys Don’t Cry. Carrie is played by Chloë Grace Moretz.

Official Web site: Carrie-Movie.com

Tie-ins:

Carrie (Movie Tie-in Edition) Stephen King Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: RH/Anchor – (2013-02-19) ISBN / EAN: 0345805879 / 9780345805874

Audio Tie-in (Read by Sissy Spacek), RH Audio and BOT; Spanish Language Tie-in, Vintage Espanol

Picked as a best book by both the NYT Book Review and Publishers Weekly, Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince (Scholastic, April), is being adapted as a film by Paramount.

The book is the first in the projected Ascendance trilogy. The second title, The Runaway King, is scheduled for release in March.

Adding some glitz to the announcement is the news that the executive story editor for HBO’s Game of Thrones, Bryan Cogman, has been hired to write the screenplay.

The day after the world did not end, it was announced that Chad Michael Murray (of the CW TV series, One Tree Hill) is in talks to star in a new adaptation of the first in the Left Behind series of best selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (Tyndale House). He will be joining Nicholas Cage who signed earlier to star in the film, which is set to begin production next spring.

Three low-budget films based on the books were released in 2000 through 2005.

Sorry — that headline was so good that we had to steal it from the L.A. Times‘s roundup of critical assessments of Jack Reacher, which opened over the weekend.

A chorus of such consternation arose when it was announced that Tom Cruise would play Lee Child’s 6′ 5″ hero, that the author himself spoke out in defense the choice.

Critics, however, feel the role was too much of a stretch. Movie goers also turned a cold shoulder to the film based on Child’s One Shot (Random House, 2005).

Unless there’s a big turn around over the holidays, don’t expect a sequel.

It won’t hit screens until May 10 of next year, but we already have the second official trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, (the first one was released in May, back when the movie was still scheduled for this Christmas).

Luhrmann again pairs modern music with an older story (as he did for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet). The sound track features Kanye West and Jay-Z’s No Church in the Wild, Florence + the Machines’ Bedroom Hymns and the Turtles’ Happy Together, covered by Filter.

The film stars:

Leonardo DiCaprio … Jay Gatsby

Carey Mulligan … Daisy Buchanan

Tobey Maguire …  Nick Carraway

Isla Fischer …  Myrtle Wilson

Joel Edgerton … Tom Buchanan

Elizabeth Debicki … Jordan Baker

A year ago nearly to the date, it was announced that Universal had acquired the rights to Laini Taylor’s award winning YA novel, Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Hachette/LBYR).

The studio has now signaled that they “see the project as a priority,” according to Deadline.com, by signing Joe Roth (Snow White and The Huntsman) to produce it.

The second in the planned trilogy, Days Of Blood & Starlight, (Hachette/LBYR), came out last month.

Angelina Jolie lands her second role as director (after Blood and Honey) for the adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s long running best seller, Unbroken (Random House, 2010), reports Deadline.com.

Amazingly, a film about Unbroken‘s subject, Louis Zamperini, who survived 47 days on a life raft in the Pacific during WWII, has been in the works for 55 years, long before Hillenbrand began working on her book. Universal bought Zamperini’s “life rights” in the 1950’s, with plans to star Tony Curtis.

The film is supposed to begin production next year.

Zamperini will be 96 years old in January.

Hillenbrand’s earlier book, Seabiscuit, (Random House, 2001), was made into a successful movie.

Releases are light again this week, as the stores focus on selling, rather than unpacking boxes. It’s notable that the only book with a significant first printing is a Y.A. title, The Darkest Minds, the first in a new dyspotian romance trilogy. A new collection of stories in the ever-expanding Amish fiction category lands just as another Amish TV series begins. Also arriving is the tie-in to the eighth movie based on a Nicholas Sparks‘ novel, which hits theaters on Valentine’s Day.

Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds, (Disney/Hyperion)

There’s high hopes (as in a 100,000-copy first printing) for this first in a new dystopian romance trilogy by an author with just one previous YA title (Brightly Woven, Egmont, 2010). A YALSA galley mailing made an impact; it’s been mentioned on recent YA GalleyChats. It is also on the Winter ’12 Kid’s Indie Next list. The three prepub reviews are strong. Only one, Booklist, raises an objection, saying that, although Bracken is skilled at ramping up the action, “there is so much going on here, it’s hard to keep it all straight.” PW says the author “has created a gritty, economically devastated near-future America where children are hunted and feared, and danger lurks even in the aisles of an abandoned Wal-Mart” and that “the story’s quick-paced action leads to a heartbreaking cliffhanger that will have readers eager for the next book in this planned trilogy.” That one will be coming in the Fall 2013.

An Amish Kitchen by Beth Wiseman, Amy Clipston, Kelly Long (Thomas Nelson; Oasis Audio; Thorndike Large Print)

This collection of three Amish romance novellas is the next in a series of such collections, the most recent was last year’s An Amish Wedding. The three contributors have each written several books in the genre. TV has also discovered the Amish; a new series, Amish Mafia begins on Wednesday.
 

Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven (trade paperback, Hachette/Grand Central; also mass market pbk)

No wonder Sparks appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s first list of “Power authors;” this is the eighth movie based on one of his novels. It is directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who also headed up the adaptation of Sparks’ Dear John (his other credits include Cider House Rules, Chocolat and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen).

Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel star in this next potential blockbuster, which debuts on Valentine’s Day.

The trailer for the first of four contenders for Next Big Movie Based on a Paranormal Romance, was featured, appropriately, before screenings of the final installment of Twilight. This one, however, adds some humor to the love story about a teenage zombie who falls in love with a human who happens to be the daughter of a zombie killer (Montagues and Capulets, anyone?), played by John Malkovich.

The tie-in (S&S/Atria/Emily Bestler) arrives Dec. 25. The movie arrives Feb. 1.

The book’s author, Isaac Marion noted on his blog in October that he is working on a sequel.

The other Next Big Movie Based on a Paranormal Romance contenders coming next year are:

Feb 13 — Beautiful Creatures — Based on the first in a four-part YA paranormal romance series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

March 29 — The Host — Based on a standalone alien romance novel by Stephenie Meyer

Aug 23 — Mortal Instruments — Based on the first two titles in a six-part YA urban fantasy series by Cassandra Clare

The movie is not scheduled for release until Nov. 1 of next year, but Entertainment Weekly is already offering a sneak peek at Ender’s Game, including a still of Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff, staring down Asa Butterfield as Ender, plus photos of the full cast.

There are those who want to read the book before the movie; the attention has moved Orson Scott Card’s 1985 sci-fi novel (Macmillan/Tor) up Amazon’s rankings. EW quotes director Gavin Hood about the changes they will see. He promises that at least one thing remains the same,“That ending — and the complex moral questions that it raises — is one of the reasons why I love the book. I promise you that it is very much there.”

Summit Entertainment has just launched the film’s official Facebook page.

George Clooney already has a slate of big names for his movie about the rescue of art treasures from the hands of  the Nazis, The Monument’s Men. Now Deadline reports that Matt Damon is also in talks to join a cast that would overwhelm the largest marquee. It includes Daniel Craig, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, and John Goodman.

The film is based on a book by Robert M. Edsel who, after selling his oil and gas exploration company, began researching the efforts of the group called “The Monuments Men,” (which, despite its name,  included at least one woman, Rose Valland, a French Resistance fighter, to be played by Blanchett).

Clooney will direct as well as star. Filming is set to begin in January in Europe.

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History Robert M. Edsel Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 513 pages Publisher: Hachette/Center Street – (2009-09-03) ISBN 9781599951492

There are several other books on the subject (see our earlier story). Edsel is also publishing new book, Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nations Treasures from the Nazis, this coming May.

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis Robert M. Edsel Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2013-05-13) ISBN / EAN: 0393082415 / 9780393082418

As an indicator of the importance of authors to the movie business these days, the new issue of Hollywood Reporter (on stands Dec. 7) features their first list of the top 25 “Power Authors,” complete with glamour shots (yes, that’s Stephenie Meyer, in the center of the photo on the left, holding her own with the stars of the upcoming adaptation of The Host, Jake Abel and Diane Kruger. Meanwhile, Reese Witherspoon is in danger of being outshone by author Gillian Flynn in their photo).

There’s few surprises among the Top 25 (Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, et. al.). The feature on Six Writers to Watch is more fun. It’s headed by Jennifer Egan (her novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad is being adapted by Peter Weir as an HBO series, according to THR, but other sources have reported that Weir is actually set to film her earlier gothic-tinged The Keep). Reflecting the importance of the YA audience to Hollywood, two of them are known as young adult writers — Maggie Stiefvater and John Green — and a third, Ransom Riggs, is listed for his YA title, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.