Two movies based on books open this weekend. Links to the trailers are to the right of the site, under “Books to Movies — Trailers”.

Creation explores how the death of Darwin’s 10-year daughter influenced his view of evolution and religion. It’s based on the book Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes (the tie-in uses the movie title).

The author was interviewed last night on Fresh Air with Terry Gross (listen to it here).

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JAN 22, 2010

Movie Title: Creation

Director: Jon Amiel

Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Northam

Based on: Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes

Official Web Site: CreationTheMovie.com

Tie-in:

Creation (Movie Tie-In): Darwin, His Daughter & Human Evolution Randal Keynes Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 448 pages Publisher: Riverhead Trade – (2009-11-25) ISBN / EAN: 1594484740 / 9781594484742

eBook available from OverDrive (under the title Creation)

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Been hearing the phrase “I ALREADY work around the clock!” a lot recently? It’s not just a reflection of how pressured people are feeling; it’s a quote from the new Harrison Ford/ Brendan Fraser movie Extraordinary Measures, based on the book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children.

If you want to drive yourself nuts, listen to it on its own soundboard; if not, you can hear it in context in the movie trailer.

JAN 22, 2010

Movie Title: Extraordinary Measures

Director: Tom Vaughan

Starring: Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, Keri Russell

Official Movie Site

Based on: The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children, by Geeta Anand

The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children Geeta Anand Retail Price: $15.99 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Harper Paperbacks – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006073440X / 9780060734404

eBook available from OverDrive.

The teaser trailer for the forthcoming Alice in Wonderland à la Tim Burton did not include a scene Alice fans adore; the Queen of Hearts (in this case, Helena Bonham Carter) screaming, “Off with their heads!” (it seems Burton has renamed her the Red Queen, who is actually in Through the Looking-Glass, but this is not a literal interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s books. Burton’s film is about a 19-year-old Alice, who returns to the lands she visited as a young girl).

A new trailer addresses includes the beloved pronouncement and adds another catch phrase for the Queen, one which may eclipse the original.

Still no caterpillar, however.

To see a larger (and somewhat longer version) go to the Web site.

The movie opens March 5, 2010.

A Single Man, based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel, opened in a few theaters last week and will roll out nationally on Christmas Day. Fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut has received generally admiring reviews as well as three Golden Globe nominations:

• Colin Firth, Best Actor
• Julianne Moore, Best Supporting Actress
• Best Original Score

In its review of the movie, the NYT describes the book as,

…a foundational text in modern gay literature. The novelist Edmund White, for one, called the book “the first truly liberated gay novel in English.”

and,

An intensely, at times uncomfortably, intimate work of fiction, A Single Man condenses [the main character] George’s story — much of his very life — into one emotion- and event-charged day. What makes the day special, and the book too, is George’s existential condition. George is single. And he is a man. But he is also a homosexual, which helps set him and his lusting, fading body apart from almost everyone in his life.

Given the gay theme, there have been accusations that promoting the movie with an image of Colin Firth and Julianne Moore sharing a pillow is, at the least, misleading.

[To see the trailer in a full-screen version, go to the movie Web site.]

The University of Minnesota Press, which owns the rights to many of Isherwood’s titles, is releasing the tie-in. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the press originally planned to include Moore on the cover, but Ford “nixed the idea.”

The U. of Minn. Press also created a Web site for the book, that includes an excerpt, reading group guides and information on other Isherwood titles in their catalog.

A Single Man Christopher Isherwood Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 186 pages Publisher: University of Minnesota Press – (2001-04) ISBN / EAN: 0816638624 / 9780816638628

HighBridge is releasing a new audio version, with tie-in art:

A Single Man Christopher Isherwood Audio CD: $24.95 Publisher: HighBridge Company – (2009-12-22) ISBN / EAN: 1615730583 / 9781615730582

Audio Excerpt

Audio also downloadable from OverDrive

The movie based on Alice Sebold’s 2002 bestseller The Lovely Bones opened in select theaters last week to generally bad reviews (with the notable exception of Time magazine).

Early audience research shows that the movie plays well with a group the producers did not expect, teen and college-aged women, according to the L.A. Times.

Paramount is now aiming its marketing at the same demographic that made Twilight a hit.

The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Back Bay Books – (2009-09-30) ISBN / EAN: 0316044938 / 9780316044936

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The Lovely Bones: Deluxe Edition Alice Sebold Retail Price: $16.99 Paperback: 328 pages Publisher: Back Bay Books – (2007-09-17) ISBN / EAN: 0316001821 / 9780316001823

Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was an international hit before it caught on in the US (in fact, at one time, many thought that American would turn a cold shoulder to the book’s dark themes). A Swedish movie of the title has also been a success in Europe and is now the highest-grossing Swedish film of all times. It’s due to hit screens here in March.

But Sony Pictures has decided there needs to be an American version and is signing up the English-language rights to the entire Millennium series, with Scott Rudin, famous for producing many successful book-based films (The Hours, Revolutionary Road, The Other Boleyn Girl) as producer.

It can be a long road from option-signing to the silver screen. Meanwhile, here’s the trailer for the Swedish movie, with English subtitles.

The year’s major sleeper success, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is being fast-tracked by producer Chris Columbus, according to Variety. Set to direct is actor-turned-director Tate Taylor.

Like Stockett, Taylor grew up in Mississippi. In fact, one of the characters in the book is based on his mother. He optioned the book before publication.

No word yet on who may star.

The Help Kathryn Stockett Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult – (2009-02-10) ISBN / EAN: 0399155341 / 9780399155345

Penguin Audio; ISBN: 9780143144182 $39.95
Downloadable from OverDrive in both eBook and audio

Imagine you write a novel about a guy who is a frequent flyer.

Then, imagine that the cover looks like this:

Then, imagine that the actual date of the book’s publication party is September 11, 2001. Sales, needless to say, were not great and a movie deal was tabled.

But, nearly ten years late, as author Walter Kirn recounts in in the Daily Beast (“George Clooney Saved My Novel“), the book is a bestseller and the movie is topping the Golden Globe as well as Oscar lists.

Up in the Air (Movie Tie-in Edition) Walter Kirn Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Anchor – (2009-11-24) ISBN / EAN: 0307476294 / 9780307476296

The Lovely Bones movie opens this weekend, and the reviews are…rough. Peter Jackson, the director of Heavenly Creatures and Lord of the Rings, gets flack for being too faithful to the novel, and for going astray with special effects in his depiction of heaven, where the teenage protagonist ends up after she is murdered.

But remember – newly-jacketed tie-in editions displayed front-of-store in bookstores can remind readers of books they always meant to read. It’s worked in this case; the tie-in rose to #18 on last week’s USA Today bestseller list.

Newsweek calls The Lovely Bones an awkward mix of thriller, police procedural, family melodrama and mystical fantasy that lacks Sebold’s skill in holding its disparate elements.

By remaining faithful to Sebold’s myriad flights of fancy… [Jackson] has inadvertently highlighted the book’s vulnerabilities. When The Lovely Bones loses its grip on you, its momentousness turns into silliness.

People magazine gives the movie a dismal 1.5 of possible 4 stars in the 12/21 issue. The review is even more scathing (not available online): Jackson has made “a gallon-size, candy-colored margarita, but it contains only a thimble-full of actual tequila,” it says. “How much you like Bones may depend on how strongly you believe in a neon-bright afterlife.”

The Associated Press review is only slightly more tempered, praising Jackson’s striking imagery, but calling the resulting spectacle “showmanship, not storytelling, [that distracts] from the mortal drama of regret and heartache he’s trying to tell.”

The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Back Bay Books – (2009-09-30) ISBN / EAN: 0316044938 / 9780316044936

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The Lovely Bones: Deluxe Edition Alice Sebold Retail Price: $16.99 Paperback: 328 pages Publisher: Back Bay Books – (2007-09-17) ISBN / EAN: 0316001821 / 9780316001823

Reviews are popping up all over for yet another Oscar-buzzed book based on a movie, The Last Station, from the novel by Jay Parini, about Tolstoy’s final year. It opens today in a limited number of theaters for one-week run (probably so it can qualify Oscar consideration), prior to its regular release in mid-January.

The NYT accuses the movie’s amazing cast (Christopher Plummer as Leo Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as his wife, Sofya Tolstoy, and Paul Giamatti as one of Tolstoy’s disciples) of overacting, but the  L.A. Times enjoys what they term, their “larger-than-life performances.”

Judge for yourself from the trailer below, or view it in a larger format on the movie’s Official Web site.

Tie-ins:

The Last Station (Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel of Tolstoy’s Final Year Jay Parini Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Anchor – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0307739643 / 9780307739643

Newmarket Press will also release the shooting script.

Up in The Air with George Clooney is being called the Oscar front-runner, with Precious close behind.

The director, Jason Reitman, was interviewed last night on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The show also reran an earlier interview with Walter Kirn, author of the book that the movie is based on. Kirn talks about the inspiration for his main character, a corporate “downsizer” who spends most of his life on airplanes as he travels around the country, laying people off. Great background for the movie, which opens tomorrow.

.

Tie-in edition:

Up In The Air (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Random House Movie Tie-In Books) Walter Kirn Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Anchor – (2009-10-27) ISBN / EAN: 0307476286 / 9780307476289

Book downloadable from OverDrive.

Kirn’s new book, a memoir, Lost in the Meritocracy, is a NYT BR Notable book, described as,

The witty, self-castigating story of how Kirn’s schooling left him “not so much educated as wised up.”

Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever Walter Kirn Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2009-05-19) ISBN / EAN: 0385521286 / 9780385521284

Book downloadable from OverDrive.

It’s been a strong year for movies based on books. Oscar predictions are studded with titles familiar from books; two of them, Lovely Bones and Invictus are coming out this month.

Looking ahead to 2010, some new titles have been added to the schedule (for the full schedule of forthcoming movies based on books, see our Upcoming — with Tie-ins.)

Be sure to click on the Official Movie Site links to watch the trailers (after all, it’s essential to your work.)

JAN 22, 2010

Movie Title: Extraordinary Measures

Director: Tom Vaughan

Starring: Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, Keri Russell

Official Movie Site

Based on: The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children, by Geeta Anand

The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children Geeta Anand Retail Price: $15.99 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Harper Paperbacks – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006073440X / 9780060734404

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MAR 26, 2010

Movie Title: How to Train Your Dragon

Directors: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders

Voices of: Gerard Butler, Johan Hill, America Ferrera

Based on: How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

Official Movie Site

Newmarket is publishing one an “Art of…” book. Other tie-ins have not been announced yet.

The Art of How to Train Your Dragon Tracey Miller-Zarneke Retail Price: $40.00 Hardcover: 160 pages Publisher: Newmarket Press – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1557048630 / 9781557048639

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April 2, 2010

Movie Title: The Last Song

Director: Julie Anne Robinson

Starring: Miley Cyrus, Kelly Preston, Greg Kinnear

Based on: The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks (a movie based on another Sparks’ title, Dear John, arrives in theaters in February

Official Movie Site

No tie-in announced yet.

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MAR 12, 2010

Movie Title: Green Zone

Director: Paul Greengrass

Starring: Matt Damon, Jason Isaacs, Greg Kinnear

Based on: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Official Movie Site

No tie-in announced yet

On the eve of the book’s publication, comes the news of a movie deal for the debut title in a planned five-book YA series, Beautiful Creatures.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. is looking for a way to fill the revenue hole that the Harry Potter movies will eventually leave (the last in the series, Deathly Hollows, is coming out in two parts, scheduled for Nov 19, 2010 and July 15, 2011.) Meanwhile, Entertainment Weekly sees the move as part of the “hunt for the next Twilight.”

Warner has hired Richard LaGravenese (P.S. I Love You) to write and direct.

Beautiful Creatures Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2009-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316042676 / 9780316042673 Listen to an excerpt

Hachette Audio: 9780316042673; $17.99

The book is being promoted by Amazon (it’s being featured on the books home page and the Amazon editors picked it as #5 in the Top 100 titles for 2009). In sales rankings, it is now at #68.

Of course, this isn’t the only series that movie people have declared the next HP or Twilight:

The Harry Potter mantel:

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, (if you haven’t already, check out the new trailer) — scheduled for release Feb. 12, 2010. It is directed by Chris Columbus, who also directed the first two HP movies.

Septimus Heap: Magyk — announced for 2012, an animated film.

The new Twilight (the next in that series, Eclipse is coming June 20, 2010 and it’s been rumored that the last book, Breaking Dawn, will be slpit into two movies):

Mortal Instruments — Jessica Postigo (Operation Checkmate) has been signed up to write the script that is based on the novels City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass.

The Host — Stephenie Meyer’s title published for adults was signed up recently. It’s not a series, at least not yet. Meyer has hinted that she might return to the story, most recently on last’s week’s CBS Sunday Morning.

House of Night — the series was acquired last year, but no news since.

Worried that there aren’t enough YA vampire movies in the pipeline?

Worry no more; The Hollywood Reporter announces that DreamWorks Studios has acquired the rights to the five-book Wicked series.

The producers say, “Wicked has all the elements for a great movie–adventure, mystery, star-crossed lovers, bitter enemies, and the supernatural. [the script writers] came in with an intriguing take on the books and a story that we feel will really speak to all audiences.”

Release is planned for 2012.

The movie will be based on the first two titles in the sereis, Witch and Curse, which are available in one volume.

Wicked: Witch & Curse Nancy Holder, Debbie Viguié Retail Price: $7.99 Paperback: 672 pages Publisher: Simon Pulse – (2008-09-09) ISBN / EAN: 141697119X / 9781416971191

At the end of September, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, the first in a 3-vol YA paranormal romance series about werewolves, was acquired. No release date was given.

Shiver Maggie Stiefvater Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Scholastic Press – (2009-08-01) ISBN / EAN: 0545123267 / 9780545123266

And, last year, the House of Night series was optioned. The newest title in that series has just been released.

Tempted (House of Night Novels) P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2009-10-27) ISBN / EAN: 0312567480 / 9780312567484

I had the rare opportunity to go to an early screening of the Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, which opens for lesser mortals today. Having read the first book long ago, I had only a vague memory of the plot. No matter.

What do I want in a movie?

Fast paced adventure?    Check!

A sense of humor?          Check!

No shaky hand held cameras?   Check!

No intrusive “author’s message”?   Check!

A real movie critic might quibble about the slight story line and thin premise, but I am here to say lighten up, it was fun. John C. Reilly as the vampire was alternately menacing and sweet (I know — just go with it). The lead teen was understated as the perfect high-schooler whose life gets turned upside down. The supporting characters were fantastic; I am in love with the snake boy.

A heads-up for language and violence; yeah that’s why it is PG-13. The language was more an exclamation point in the witty dialog and the fight scenes were more cartoonish than scary.

So as a good friend of mine would say, the movie is a great advertisement for the books.

[To see a larger version of the trailer, go to the official movie Web site]

Tie-in:

The Vampire’s Assistant and Other Tales from the Cirque Du Freak (The Saga of Darren Shan) Darren Shan Retail Price: $12.99 Paperback: 720 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2009-09-15) ISBN / EAN: 031605240X / 9780316052405

Books continue to rule at the box office this weekend; Where the Wild Things Are was #1. Does this mean Warner Brothers was wrong to worry that the movie wouldn’t appeal to kids? Not exactly; according to Variety, 43% of the audiences were over 18 and only 27% were families.

Unfortunately, if filmgoers feel as lukewarm about what they saw as the critics did, strong ticket sales may not continue.

Schedule Changes

Youth in Revolt has been moved from an October release date to January 8th.

The movie of the superhero comic, The Green Lantern was going to be shot in Australia, but has been pulled because of the weakening of the US dollar against the Australian dollar. Production may be moved to Louisiana. It is now scheduled for a 2011 release.

However, the third in the Chronicles of Narnia series, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will continue shooting down under, with a release date of Dec., 2010.

New Trailers

FEB 5, 2010

Dear John, based on the book by Nicholas Sparks

The official web site is now up.

FEB 12, 2010

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Official web site now up.