The Bricklayer by Noah Boyd (Morrow, Jan ’10) came out with high expectations last January, but only landed on the extended NYT Fiction Bestseller list for one week. If you still have copies around, here’s a chance to get more mileage out of them; as they say, it’s going to  become a major motion picture.

The story features a disillusioned FBI agent, working as a bricklayer, who is lured back in to the fold to help stop a criminal group that is blackmailing the bureau. Gerard Butler (300) has just signed to play the lead.

No news yet on when  production will begin.

The second book in the series, Agent X, came out in February.

No need to wonder if there will be a sequel to The Hunger Games. Lionsgate has announced Nov. 22, 2013 as the release date for Catching Fire, based on the second book in the trilogy by Suzanne Collins (via Deadline). That’s nearly a year and nine months, after the release of the first in the series, scheduled to open March 23, 2012.

Why such a long wait? The Lionsgate press release does not address that question although it does state that the pre-Thanksgiving time slot is a good one for family movies. That slot in 2012 is already spoken for by Breaking Dawn, Part 2, the finale of the Twilight saga. Given the success of the finale of Harry Potter, what studio would want to go up against it?

The first movie, Hunger Games, is in the midst of filming. No word on the third book in the series, Mockingjay, but we’re betting it will be made and will be released in November, 2014.

The movie Parker, based on Flashfire, (recently reissued by the U. of Chicago Press) one of the later titles in the Parker series by Donald Westlake (writing under the name Richard Stark) has begun shooting in New Orleans and is scheduled for release on Oct. 12, 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Directed by Taylor Hackford, it stars Jason Statham as the hardboiled thief Parker, Jennifer Lopez as a real estate agent who becomes his accomplice, and Nick Nolte as his mentor.

The series began in in 1961 with The Hunter (which was made into two movies, Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin in 1987 and The Payback in 1999, starring Mel Gibson) and continued through the ’70’s. Westlake brought the character back nearly 25 years later in the appropriately named Comeback in 1997. Flashfire, published in 2000, is part of the new series.

The prolific Westlake died in 2008. For an assessment of Parker’s appeal, read Sarah Weinman’s “The Violent and Work-Filled World of Parker.”

Jesse Eisenberg, who starred as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, will play two roles in the film adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novella, The Double, about a man whose life begins to fall apart when a fellow who looks just like him arrives at his office and seems to be living his life better than he does.

The movie will be directed by Richard Ayoade, whose first feature film, the coming-of-age British comedy Submarine was a hit with critics. The Double is very dark, but The Guardian suggests that Ayoade will play it for laughs.

The fall movie schedule is shaping up. We’ve just updated the movie trailer links (listed below and also to the right of the site, under Movies Based on Books), as well as our list of Upcoming Movies — with Tie-ins. Great browsing for the end of a Friday. Remember, it’s a professional responsibility to be familiar with these titles.

Homework assignment: which major director has TWO big movies coming out on the same day?

• 9/16  —  I Don’t Know How She Does It
• 9/16  —  Straw Dogs (based on The Siege of Trencher’s Farm)
• 9/23 —  Killer Elite (Based on Feather Men, Ranulph Fiennes)
• 9/23  —  Moneyball
• 9/30  —  What’s Your Number? (Based on 20 Times A Lady, Karyn Bosnak)
• 10/21 — The Three Musketeers
• 10/28 — Anonymous (Was Shakespeare a Fraud?) — not based on a specific book, but there are enough books on the subject to warrant an entire display. Tie-in are scheduled.
• 11/18 — Breaking Dawn (Part 1)
• 11/18 — Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• 11/23 — Hugo (Based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick)
• 11/23 — The Descendants
• 12/16 — Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows
• 12/16 — We Need to Talk about Kevin (limited; wide in Jan, 2012)
• 12/21 — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (English-language version)
• 12/23 — The Adventures of Tintin
• 12/23 — War Horse

Kenneth Branagh is in talks to direct an adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer (Random House, 2008), according to Variety. Plans are to begin production in the spring.

The movie of Kathyrn Stockett’s novel The Help opens this coming Wednesday and promotion is in full gear, including an Entertainment Weekly cover story and coverage in all the national newspapers. The focus of many of the stories is the childhood friendship between the author and and the movie’s director Tate Taylor, who had only directed two small films (the most successful made $7,000) when he got an early look at the book and loved it immediately.

Here at EarlyWord, we feel like we grew up with The Help. We first covered it when editor Amy Einhorn pitched it during an AAP Editors Buzz session. Shortly after it was published, we noted that libraries had ordered it cautiously, but holds were growing. Story after story followed, tracking the book’s rise and then plans for the movie. Now, over two years after it first appeared, libraries are still showing holds on it in all formats, but on many more copies.

Will we be seeing another novel from Stockett? She tells Entertainment Weekly‘s “Shelf Life” blog that she’s working on a story set in Mississippi in the 1920’s; “it’s about a group of women who were raised in a rather white privileged home and then the Depression hit and suddenly they have no support. They have absolutely no marketable skills. So they have to figure out how to work their way up into the world and figure out how to earn a living and support each other and take care of each other.”

I’m not making this up. A forthcoming movie is described by Deadline as an “action epic battle between good and evil that is inspired by the John Milton poem [Paradise Lost].” Benjamin Walker is in talks to play archangel Michael, who “will go mano a mano against Bradley Cooper’s Lucifer…the film will have cutting-edge visual effects that will make these battles resemble 300 meets Lord of the Rings– but with winged warriors.” Plans are to begin shooting in January, with the film possibly debuting at the end of 2013.

Bradley Cooper, who starred in The Hangover has been literary lately. He just finished filming as the lead in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and is about to begin shooting The Silver Linings Playbook, based on the debut novel by Matthew Quick, which was one of Nancy Pearl’s picks for summer reading, 2009).

Five years after it was first signed, the movie that was understatedly described as “not the easiest film adaptation,” will see the light of day by the end of the year. Warner Bros. is releasing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, in a limited, Oscar-qualifying run beginning Christmas day, followed by openings in more cities on Jan. 20th. It’s directed by Stephen Daldry who has tackled serious literary fare before in The Hours and The Reader.

Thirteen-year-old Jeopardy winner, Thomas Horn will play Oskar, a nine-year old whose  father died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks play his parents and John Goodman is the doorman who helps the boy  search Manhattan, looking for the  lock that matches a key his father left behind.

A tie-in is scheduled for November.

USA Today interviews director Cameron Crowe on the set of We Bought a Zoo, starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, and based on the memoir by Benjamin Mee (Weinstein Books, 2008).

The movie opens Dec. 23,. USA Today notes the timing is an indicator of the studio’s belief in the movies, since it is during the holiday rush and at the height of Oscar season.

Blackstone released an audio version in June. A media tie-in edition is coming in November

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever Benjamin Mee Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2011-11-08) ISBN / EAN: 1602861579 / 9781602861572

Audio and ebook on OverDrive.

Actress Tilda Swinton’s dramatic looks are the basis for an equally dramatic fashion spread in the August issue of W Magazine. She stars in a movie based on Lionel Shrivers’ novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, which was the talk of the Cannes film festival in May.

The movie is scheduled to open in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 2, qualifying it for the Academy Awards.

In an interview that accompanies the photo shoot, Swinton discusses the movie’s “taboo subject: the idea of a less than perfect mother.” She says, ” I knew that, when an audience watched the film, there would be a gag reflex at some point. But I was fascinated by the subject—it scared me, and that interested me.”

Shriver’s book won the Orange Prize in 2006. A movie tie-in will be published on 11/29/11.

Entertainment Weekly is all over the movie of Suzanne Collins’ YA novel, The Hunger Games. They’ve even created an online site, The Hunger Games Central.

The cover of the new issue features The Hunger Games guys (Katniss was featured back in May). Tom Cruise isn’t the only one getting grief over his physical size; there’s been online “hand-wringing”  from fans that Katiniss will “tower” over Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark. In the EW interview, he sets the record straight; she’s a mere half inch taller, if that.

The movie is scheduled to open March 23, 2012.

The movie of Lee Child’s One Shot, starring Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher is moving closer to reality. It now has a release date of Feb. 8, 2013. For all of you who can’t believe that the Cruise was chosen to portray the 6’5″, 250 pound Reacher, get ready.  Paramount is hoping One Shot will launch a series based on the novels (strange that they decided to begin with the ninth title in the series).

The 17th Reacher novel, The Affair (Delacorte)  is coming in September.

Kristin Scott Thomas, who stars in the film Sarah’s Key, based on Tatiana de Rosnay’s novel, was interviewed on Fresh Air yesterday. She talked about her personal relationship to the little-known story of the roundup and killing of French Jews during WWII that inspired both the book and the movie.

The film is showing in a limited number of theaters; check the film’s Web site to find theaters in your area.

Tie-in:

Sarah’s Key Tatiana de Rosnay Retail Price: $13.99 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2011-07-05) ISBN / EAN: 1250004349 / 9781250004345

Rights to he best selling oral history of the all-sports network, ESPN, Those Guys Have All The Fun are in the process of being sold to 20th Century Fox, according to Deadline.

Coincidentally, today’s NYT story about early release of paperback reprints mentions that the book will arrive in paperback on Dec. 1, just over six months after the hardcover release.

Libraries are showing heavy holds.