At the BEA this week, there was buzz about Libba Bray’s The Diviners, the first in a planned four-part YA series, to be published in September. It’s a mystery, featuring a main character with mystical power, set in NYC in the 1920’s (appropriately, Little, Brown threw a speakeasy-themed party for the book during BEA). More buzz– it was just announced that Paramount has picked up the film rights, with Bray writing the screenplay and acting as executive producer.

The Diviners Libba Bray Retail Price: $19.99 Hardcover: 608 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2012-09-18) ISBN / EAN: 031612611X / 9780316126113

Don’t cry Kermie, you will always be The First Frog.

But now, another frog is set to join you. The Jim Henson Company has acquired the rights to Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series for an animated feature, according to Deadline.

The trailer for the movie version of The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (S&S/MTV Books; audio, Recorded Books) debuted at last night’s MTV Movie Awards.

Star Emma Watson (who shared MTV’s Best Cast Award with the rest of the stars of the final Harry Potter installment) introduced the movie, along with co-stars Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller.

Watson plays Sam, who guides wallflower Charlie (Logan Lerman) through the pitfalls of trying to fit in. Chbosky wrote the screenplay and directed the film.

It is scheduled to open on September 14.

Official movie site: Perks-of-Being-a-Wallflower.com

The trade paperback rose to #23 (from #147) on Amazon sales rankings as a result. Many libraries are showing holds, some heavy.

Tie-in:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky Retail Price: $14.00 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: S&S/MTV Books – (2012-08-28) ISBN / EAN: 1451696191 / 9781451696196

Entertainment Weekly’s “Shelf Life” blog, ever on the search for hot YA “exclusives,” has the scoop on the upcoming Twilight tie-in.

The final Twilight movie is coming Nov. 16, of course. This means that Little, Brown YR can soon release (Oct. 9) The Twilight Saga: The Complete Film Archive: Memories, Mementos, and Other Treasures from the Creative Team Behind the Beloved Motion Picture by L.A. Weekly film critic Robert Abele. Says EW, based on their “first peek at the cover and the scoop on what you can find inside — from the looks of it, you’ll have a hard time prying this must-have from a true Twihard’s cold, dead hands.”

The book appeared on Amazon sales rankings, at #353.

The first trailer for Baz Lurhmann’s 3-D take on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has just been released. The film debuts in theaters on Christmas Day.

Movie bloggers are generally ecstatic (MTV calls it “sizzling”), but Vanity Fair notes an online backlash coming from the peanut gallery.

As he did for Moulin Rouge, Luhrmann uses contemporary music in spite of the historical setting. The trailer opens with Jay-Z and Kanye West’s No Church in the Wild and ends with Jack White’s version of U2’s Love is Blindness.

See if you can spot a misspelling on one of the signs in Times Square (Entertainment Weekly‘s “PopWatch” blog already has).

Official Movie Site: TheGreatGatsby.WarnerBros.com

If you need a quick refresher on the story, this should do the trick:

If that makes you curious about the 1948 version with Shelley Winters in her first starring role (as Myrtle Wilson — Isla Fisher has that part in the new movie), you can view a clip here (she appears 5:11 minutes in to it).

Two movies about Steve Jobs are in the works. Ashton Kutcher is currently filming Jobs: Get Inspired, in which he plays Apple’s co-founder. It is expected to hit theaters later this year.

Rumors that Aaron Sorkin will create a film script from Walter Isaacson’s bio, Steve Jobs (S&S) have been confirmed by Sony Pictures. Sorkin explored the career of another complicated tech mogul, Facebook co-creator Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010) adapted from Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires (RH/Doubleday, 2009).

The Cannes film festival opens today. With all those Hollywood types hanging out on the Croisette, there’s bound to be a lot of deal making. The Hollywood Reporter has the story on one of the first. Amy Adams is in talks to star in an adaptation of Edgar-finalist Gillian Flynn’s 2009 novel, Dark Places. If negotiations go well, she will play Libby Day who was seven when her family was murdered. She escaped and accused her 15-year old brother Ben of being the killer.  Twenty-five years later a group questions Libby in an effort to get him out of jail. The movie is to be directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, who directed the adaptation of Tatiana De Rosnay’s Sarah’s Key.

Dark Places is Gillian Flynn’s second novel and was on many of the year’s best books lists. Her third book, Gone Girl, is a psychological thriller about a marriage (author Adam Ross’s blurb says “it’s like Scenes from a Marriage remade by Alfred Hitchcock”). It will be published June 5th and has received enthusiasm on GalleyChat. Audio and print excerpts are available on the NPR Web site. Digital ARC’s on Edelweiss and NetGalley.

Author Web site: Gillian-Flynn.com

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-06-05) ISBN: 9780307588364

Following the bidding wars for Fifty Shades of Grey (which began its life as Master of the Universe on a Twilight fan fiction site) and the sci-fi Wool, Hollywood continues its fascination with self-pubbed titles.

Film rights to Tracey Garvis-Graves’ On the Island, a NYT E-Book Fiction Best Seller (currently at #9 after 4 weeks; down from a high of #7), were just won at auction by Warner Brothers, reports Variety. In addition to the ebook format (available on B&T’s Axis 360), it is available in paperback (Amazon/CreateSpace, 9781466363212, 3/14/12). WorldCat indicates that few libraries own it.

Clips are beginning to arrive online for films that will premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. The one below is from The Paperboy (via Rope of Silcon), based on National Book Award winning author Pete Dexter’s novel (Random House, 1995). It stars Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey and John Cusack and is directed by Lee Daniels (Precious). No US release date has been set, but it may appear in the late fall of this year.

Beautiful demonic serial killer Gretchen Lowell may materialize in a TV series. According to Deadline, FX has put Chelsea Cain’s books, Heartsick, Sweetheart and Evil At Heart, into development. No cast has been named.

On her blog, Cain says she is “over the moon” that the network responsible for Justified,  American Horror Story and Sons of Anarchy has given the green light for the pilot, saying, “These people clearly buy fake blood in bulk and know how to use it.” If it succeeds, the network plans on doing three 13-episode seasons, each based on one of the titles.

After that, there’s more material to work with. The fifth book in the series is coming in August, following the fourth, Night Season, published last year.

Kill You Twice Chelsea Cain Retail Price:  $25.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Macmillan/Minotaur – (2012-08-07) ISBN / EAN: 0312619782/9780312619787

Macmillan audio; Thorndike released Evil at Heart and The Night Season in large type.

Walter Salles’s film of Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation classic On The Road is set to premiere at the upcoming Cannes film festival. Distribution rights have just been picked up, with plans to release it in the fall, which means it will be eligible for 2013 Oscar nominations.

The film includes so many marquee names that it will be difficult to fit them all on a single marquee, but the name dominating the headlines is Twilight‘s Kristen Stewart, who plays Mary Lou, Dean Moriarity’s 16-year-old bride. In addition to starring in the Twilight franchise, Stewart has starred in indie movies and was particularly powerful playing Joan Jett in The Runaways.

On The Road also stars

Garrett Hedlund … Dean Moriarty

Sam Riley — Sal Paradise

Kirsten Dunst … Camille

Amy Adams … Jane

Tom Sturridge … Carlo Marx

Danny Morgan … Ed Dunk

Alice Braga … Terry

Elisabeth Moss … Galatea Dunkel

Viggo Mortensen … Old Bull Lee

For information on various editions of the book, see our earlier post.

After setting box office records for the Norwegian film industry, Headhunters, based on Jo Nesbo’s stand-alone thriller, opened this weekend in New York and Los Angeles and will expand to more theaters through May.

It was reviewed widely, receiving generally strong critical response, with the exception of the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal critic went so far as to put it on his “short list of the most enjoyable movies in recent memory.”

And, yes, following in the footsteps of movies based on Stieg Larsson’s books, an American version is in the works. Last October, it was announced that Summit had acquired the rights. Mark Wahlberg  recently gave the production a push. He was so impressed with the Norwegian film that he says he “pleaded with the studio that has the rights” to make an English-language version.

Official Movie Site: MagPictures.com/Headhunters

Headhunters (Movie Tie-In Edition) Jo Nesbo Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: RH/Vintage – (2012-04-17) ISBN / EAN: 0345803477 / 9780345803474

Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese has been attached to direct a film based on the seventh book in Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, The Snowman. It’s one of many projects the director has in the works, so it’s anyone’s guess which will make it to the screen first.

Jennifer Lawrence, star of The Hunger Games, is in talks to play the lead in the movie version of Jeannette Wells’ The Glass Castle,(S&S/Scribner), a best seller ever since it was published in 2005.

Lawrence begins shooting Catching Fire in September.

Not that there was any real concern after Gary Ross bowed out of directing Catching Fire, the sequel to his hugely successful Hunger Games, but the announcement that an offer has been made, brought some sighs of relief. Without a director, the release date, Nov. 23, 2013, is now looming.

After much speculation, the candidates have been narrowed down to Francis Lawrence, who directed I Am Legend and Water for Elephants. He hasn’t officially signed on yet, so there’s the outside possibility that could change. Fans are excited by the choice and Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson has signaled his approval.

Critics said it comes across more like an infomercial for the book than a movie, but Think Like a Man managed to knock The Hunger Games off the top spot on box office charts this weekend.

The subject of the infomercial part is, of course, Steve Harvey’s best seller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (HarperCollins/Amistad). The source material hasn’t toppled the Hunger Games book trilogy, but it does appear immediately below that series, at #7 on Amazon’s best seller list (a certain other trilogy, as yet not made into a movie, holds the top three positions). The tie-in edition is further down the list, at #635.