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GalleyChatters
The film adaptation of one of the major books on the financial crisis, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail, will premiere on HBO on Monday, May 23.
Penguin is publishing a movie tie-in trade paperback edition.
As photos from the New Orleans set of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter leak on to the Web, you might be
wondering what happened to the film of that undead mashup, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.
Looks like the project is still live. Deadline reports that Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) will direct, replacing Mike White, who dropped out because of scheduling conflicts.
Abraham Lincoln… is scheduled for release June 22, 2012.
The fourth in Cassandra Clare’s YA Mortal Instruments series, City of Fallen Angels (McElderry/S&S) releases today.
Meanwhile, the film based on the series is still being cast. Lily Collins, who is set to play heroine Clary Fray, was interviewed this week by MTV about the casting process, but didn’t spill any beans.
Collins, the daughter of musician Phil Collins, is currently a hot commodity in Hollywood. She debuted as Sandra Bullock’s daughter in Blind Side, and will appear this summer in Priest, based on the comic series and Abduction in the fall. She has been offered a role in Odd Thomas, based on the novel by Dean Koontz and is set to play Snow White in The Brothers Grimm: Snow White opposite Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen.
Two of what Deadline calls “the most coveted roles for young actors this season” have been filled. Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth will star opposite Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins and to be directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville). Hutceherson (The Kids are All Right), will play the baker’s son Peeta Mellark and Hemsworth (The Last Song) will be Gale Hawthorne.
The movie, expected to be the first in a trilogy, is scheduled for release on March 23, 2012.
Universal has acquired the rights to Daniel Silva’s series of best selling thrillers featuring spy/art restorer Gabriel Allon. The producers anticipate that this will be a franchise, but they haven’t decided which book will be filmed first. (Deadline, 4/1/11)
Silva’s tenth book in the Allon series, Portrait of a Spy, (Harper) is coming in July.
We’ll have to wait to see how Katherine Heigl does playing female bounty hunter Stephanie Plum in the film version of Janet Evanovich’s One For the Money. Originally scheduled for this summer, the release has been put off until January.
The film site The Playlist sees this as a smart move. Although often regarded as “the wasteland of winter programming,” the lack of competition in that period worked well for some 2011 films, notably for No Strings Attached, starring Natalie Portman.
It’s been a long road; the book was originally optioned back in 1994, before it was published. At one point, Reese Witherspoon was attached to play Plum.
The movie tie-in (St. Martins, 9780312600730) has been postponed until November.
The next Stephanie Plum novel, Smokin’ Seventeen, is scheduled for release this June.
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Another step has been taken in the often winding road from book to film; screenwriter Richard LaGravenese has been hired to create a script based on Laura Hillenbrand’s bestseller, Unbroken (Random House), according to Deadline.
This story has had a particularly long history. Universal has been trying to produce a film about the book’s central figure, Louis Zamperini since the ’50′s, when the studio bought Zamperini’s “life rights” as a starring vehicle for Tony Curtis. More recently, Brad Pitt had plans to produce, with Nicolas Cage starring. No news on who may be chosen to star this time around.
The phrase “One for All and All for One” will be revived this fall with Paul Anderson’s remake of The Three Musketeers.
There’s been dozens of remakes of the classic novel by Alexandre Dumas (Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland starred in the 1993 Disney version).
This version features Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) as d’Artagnan. The three musketeers are Matthew Macfadyen (Robin Hood), Ray Stevenson (The Book of Eli) and Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans). Orlando Bloom plays one of the gang’s enemies and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) is Cardinal Richelieu.
The film opens on Oct. 14th. The trailer has just been released.
Director Anderson is known for video game adaptations (Mortal Kombat) and science fiction horror films (Event Horizon and Resident Evil). He’s expected to bring a new level of excitement to this classic story (not to mention 3-D realism).
Official Web site: Three-Musketeers-3D.com
If you’ve been dreading the movie version of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, the just-released teaser trailer may confirm your worst fears. Richard and Florence Atwater’s Mr. Popper has been updated to a contemporary businessman (Jim Carrey), with a high-end NYC apartment, rather than a poor small-town house painter.
The movie debuts June 17. Little, Brown will re-release the book in May (ISBN 9780316186469).
Official Web Site: PoppersPenguins.com
We suspected it was a hoax when it was first announced last fall, but it looks like it may be real. Workman’s uber-popular pregnancy manual, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, is en route to theaters. Lionsgate announced this week that Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine and Nanny McPhee) has been tapped to direct it as a romantic comedy. They describe it this way, “…in the vein of Love Actually and Valentine’s Day. The film is a modern look at love through the eyes of four interconnected couples experiencing the thrills and surprises of having a baby.”
We just hope they leave in the part about belly piercing and pregnancy.
Several bits of news about major upcoming book-to-film adaptations emerged yesterday on the movie news site Deadline.
Savages, Don Winslow, S&S, 7/13/10
The film based on the 2010 novel (which critic Sarah Weinmen calls her #1 favorite crime novel of the year) is moving closer to the screen, with the signing of Benicio Del Toro. Oliver Stone will direct. Deadline
Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965
After working for four years to put together a new version of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 sci-fi book, Paramount has thrown in the towel and given up the rights, for which they paid over six figures. The project is haunted by past history. Back in 1984, David Lynch directed a version of the book that was both a commercial and critical flop. Deadline
Cleopatra, Stacy Schiff, Little Brown, 11/1/10
News that Angelina Jolie would star in an adaptation of the biography helped push the book on to best seller lists. James Cameron was going to direct it in 3-D. That was before he decided to do two sequels to Avatar. Now David Fincher (The Social Network) is working on it with producer Scott Rudin. However, Fincher has several projects coming up, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so he may also have a time problem. Deadline.
Sing You Home, Jodi Picoult, Atria, 3/15/11
Ellen DeGeneres is working with partners to produce Picoult’s latest best seller as a feature film. The author’s My Sister’s Keeper became a 2009 movie, directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin and Alec Baldwin. Deadline
There’s been some grousing about the casting of blonde Jennifer Lawrence as the dark-haired, olive-skinned Katniss Everdeen in the film version of Hunger Games.
In a statement to Entertainment Weekly‘s “Inside Movies,” author Suzanne Collins weighs in on the choice, saying she was part of the casting process and “…after watching dozens of auditions by a group of very fine young actresses, I felt there was only one who truly captured the character I wrote in the book” and that actress was Lawrence.
Dozens of movie news sources, including Entertaiment Weekly‘s “Inside Movies”, are reporting that Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges will star in the Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures’ adaptation of the YA series, The Last Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. Originally titled after the book series, the movie is now being called The Seventh Son. Moore will play Mother Malkin, “the most evil witch in the world.” Bridges plays the exorcist mentor to the young apprentice (not yet cast) in the 1700’s.
The movie, planned as the first in a series, will be based on Revenge of the Witch.
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The next book in the series, the eighth, Rage of the Fallen, has a 4/19/11 on sale date. Series Web site: LastApprenticeBooks.com
Director Neil LaBute has signed on to direct Agatha Christie’s 1949 mystery, Crooked House, reports The Independent. According to the story, this comes at a time when the venerable British Poirot TV series, based on one of Christie’s detectives, is having trouble raising the cash to continue.
Perhaps that is the reason that edgy film director LaBute (In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors) was chosen to direct this classic whodunnit. The site Word & Film, suggests that the pairing of “the misanthropic auteur” LaBute and Christie is not as strange as one might think.
The film begins shooting later this year.
Crooked House has just been released as part of HarperCollins’s repackaging of the Christie backlist.
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With the rising success of chef memoirs, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood began to take notice. Just optioned is Bill Buford’s best selling 2006 book about apprenticing in various kitchens, including that of star chef Mario Batali, Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Knopf), reports Deadline.
The screenwriter/producer team behind the deal also put together another major adaptation, Moneyball, based on the best selling book about baseball by Michael Lewis. Starring Brad Pitt, it will be released on Sept. 23rd of this year (for a list of upcoming adaptations, along with tie-ins, go to our Upcoming — with Tie-ins).
