Downton Abbey returns to PBS for an eight-week run, beginning January 5, 2014.

American fans will again be frustrated as spoilers emerge from the UK where the series debuts in the fall.

As we wrote earlier, both Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith will return to the show. However, Siobhan Finneran, who played the conniving lady’s maid O’Brien, will not be back.

The author of the best selling Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway; Tantor Media), Countess Fiona Carnarvon, is publishing a new book about Highclere Castle this fall, featuring Lady Almina’s successor, Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway).

Of the 5 pilots based on books that NBC had green lighted, only About a Boy, is definitely on the fall schedule (although it may be based more on the movie, starring Hugh Grant, than the book by Nick Hornby). It was included in the upfront presentations to media and advertisers on Monday. Starring Minnie Driver and David Walton (New Girl), the half-hour show will air on the midseason schedule, Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

The other projects are either delayed or cancelled:

Girlfriend in a Coma – based on Douglas Coupland’s 1998 novel (HarperCollins). Christina Ricci has walked away from the lead, delaying the project.

I Am Victor – based on Jo Nesbo’s forthcoming, but not yet scheduled, book, was not mentioned in the upfront presentations, so may have been rejected.

The Sixth Gun –  based on the Oni Press graphic novel, a supernatural Western series that follows the story of six mythical guns, the sixth being the most powerful and dangerous —  Rejected

Wonderland – NBC – in which a girl named Clara wages war in Wonderland against an evil Queen once known as Alice — Production pushed back due to cost.

One of the new shows on the fall schedule is Dracula, but it appears to bear only passing acquaintance with Bram Stoker’s book. The hour-long show will air this fall on Fridays at 10 p.m.
 

Among the new series that FOX just announced for its fall lineup, is a loose adaptation of a classic, about a captain from the Revolutionary War named Ichabod who lands in the present day via a time warp and becomes a detective. The trailer for Sleepy Hollow has just been released.

FOX announced last week that it is passing on its other possible series based on a book, the YA dystopian novel by Lauren Oliver, Delirium.

Official Web site: Fox.com/Sleepy-Hollow

USA Today’s headline, “Stephen King’s 11/22/63 headed to TV,” makes it sound like a a done deal, but the Deadline story it’s based on is less definitive, stating that rights to the novel are being negotiated and that they “hear” the plan is to turn it into ” a TV series or miniseries, likely for cable.”

What is certain is that a series based on another King novel, Under the Dome, begins on CBS on June 24.

The cable channel FX’s adaptation of the first novel in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s vampire trilogy, The Strain, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2009) now has a lead, Corey Stoll (who played a character in the Netflix original series, House of Cards).

Del Toro will direct the pilot. According to Deadline, the network is likely to pick it up as a series.

The next project from the creator of the hit cable series Weeds, Jenji Kohan, is an original series for Netflix, Orange Is the New Black, adapted from Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir (Norton). Netflix just announced that all thirteen episodes will be released on July 11.

Netflix recently began developing their own programs, in an effort to attract and retain subscribers. The first two, House Of Cards (February) and Hemlock Grove (April) were also based on books.

Actress Taylor Schilling stars as Piper, who was incarcerated for 13 months in the Danbury Federal Prison in Connecticut. A Smith college graduate, just beginning her career, she seemed an unlikely candidate for prison, until a ten-year-old drug trafficking charge caught up with her.

At the time of publication, USA Today said the book “transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you. You’d expect bad behavior in prison. But it’s the moments of joy, friendship and kindness that the author experienced that make Orange so moving and lovely.”

The next season of the popular British series, Downton Abbey is currently in production. The series’ first black actor has just joined the cast. Gary Carr will play jazz singer Jack Ross, reports the UK’s Independent. A slide show of the other new additions, gives hints about the upcoming story lines (there’s at least one new love interest for Lady Mary).

Among the returning cast members are audience favorites, Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith. However, Siobhan Finneran, who played the conniving lady’s maid O’Brien, will not be back.

The author of the best selling Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway; Tantor Media), Countess Fiona Carnarvon, is publishing a new book about Highclere Castle this fall, featuring Lady Almina’s successor, Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway).

Lady Carnarvon, her home and her previous book were featured on CBS Sunday Morning earlier this year.

Last year, after many attempts to bring Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series to the screen, Sony Pictures TV acquired the rights according to Deadline.

Now, nearly a year later, Deadline writes that the project is “slowly inching to the screen” as a the producers have opened a “writers room” for four writers who will be working on the adaptation.

The eighth installment of the series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, (RH/Delacorte) is coming in December. Gabaldon answered questions about the book earlier this month on Entertainment Weekly‘s “Shelf Life” blog.

Before it was published in August of 2011, Tom Perrotta’s novel The Leftovers, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio) was acquired by HBO for a possible series.

Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) has just been named as director and shooting is expected to begin in June for a possible 2014 premiere, according to New York Magazine’s culture blog, “Vulture.” Co-writing the script with Perrotta is Damon Lindelof, who was a writer and producer for Lost. In an interview about the project last year, Lindelof indicated that the series would go beyond the book, saying it “probably only has enough content for two or three episodes.”

UPDATE, 5/8/13: Fox ultimately rejected the series.

Filming wrapped this weekend on a pilot for a possible FOX-TV series based on the popular YA novel Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

The enthusiastic cast members, including Emma Roberts and Daren Kagasoff have been Tweeting and instagramming from the set in Malibu (check out a roundup here).

The final book in the trilogy, Requiem, (HarperCollins; Listening Library), was published in early March.

In other dystopian-YA-novels-to-film news, shooting for the big-screen adaptation of Divergent (Veronica Roth, HarperCollins/Tegen; Dreamscape audio) begins today in Chicago, starring Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior and The Maze Runner, based on the book by James Dashner, is going into production with Kaya Scodelario starring.

“People’s eyes are going to bug out of their heads,” predicts Stephen King, about the CBS series based on his book, Under the Dome, for which he is also executive producer. The series doesn’t begin until June 24, but the “first look” trailer has just been released. The L.A. Times speculates that CBS released the promo early because they are “wisely taking advantage of the apocalyptic mania stoked by Sunday’s season finale of The Walking Dead.”

The producers told a crowd at WonderCon on Saturday that the series may deviate from the book, with King’s blessing, “He told us, ‘Really use the book as a jumping off point. Use the characters, use the themes, but don’t be afraid to go to new places.’ ”

It stars Mike Vogel, Dean Norris, and Rachelle Lefevre.

Tie-in:

Under the Dome, Stephen King
Trade paperback; 9781476735474, 1476735476
On Sale Date: May 14, 2013

It seems that CBS was also wise to go straight to series with this one, keeping it out of the network pilot season pile-up.Vulture writes that networks are dealing with over 100 shows, some scrambling for name actors (Christina Ricci recently walked away from the lead in Girlfriend in a Coma, based on Douglas Coupland’s book, delaying that project as NBC tries to find a replacement).

See our updated round-up of the pilots based on books.

Airing just before last night’s premiere of the new season of Game of Thrones was the promo teaser for another HBO book series adaptation, True Blood, season six, which debuts on June 16.

The trailer for Game of Thrones used the voice over, “Will it never end?” This one seems to address that question, warning, “…it is the beginning of the end.”

In a sense it is, since this is the first season without show creator Alan Ball at the helm. Not to worry, however, although HBO has made no official announcement, a casting call has gone out for season seven.

There is a definitive end to the book series, however. Charlaine Harris announced that the upcoming 13th title will be the final one, Dead Ever After (Penguin/Ace Hardcover, May 7).

The new HBO series is based on book six in the series, Definitely Dead. The tie-in edition arrives June 4 (Penguin/Ace, mass mkt pbk).

HBO has begun promotion for its Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, which premieres on May 26th. It features Michael Douglas in the lead, with Matt Damon, as his lover, Scott Thorson (pictured, at left, on the cover of the March 15 issue of Entertainment Weekly).

It is based on Thorson’s 1988 memoir, Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, which is being re-released by Tantor Audio in three formats; print, audio, and ebook on May 2.

This may be the last film directed by Steven Soderbergh, who, after 26 films in 24 years, has announced he is taking a break from filmmaking and will turn his attention to other interests (among them, importing cognac from Bolivia. What may be his last theatrical film, Side Effects, is currently playing in theaters).

Interviewed in The Hollywood Reporter, the director says he is very happy with his swan song, “I think people are gonna be surprised at how intimate it is, and that there’s no attempt to make fun of them or … to make them seem like cartoons… at the end of the day, [it’s just] two people in a room … there’s just a lot of rhinestone in it.”

Game of Thrones returns to HBO for its third season on March 31, as heralded on Entertainment Weekly’s cover.

This season is based on the third book in George R.R. Martin’s series. The tie-ins arrive next week.

A Storm of Swords (HBO Tie-in Edition): A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three
George R.R. Martin
On Sale Date: March 26, 2013
Trade Pbk; 9780345543974, 0345543971
Mass Mkt. Pbk; 9780345543981, 034554398X

Released yesterday, a new trailer opens with a line that may resonate with non-fans, “”How long does it go on?”

The ruthless heart of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor series is Thomas Cromwell, who pulled the strings for a time in Henry VIII’s court. The BBC has found the actor to play that juicy role in a mini-series of 6 one-hour episodes based on Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (both Macmillan/Holt). Shakespearean actor Mark Rylance, according to The Daily Mail. He is familiar with the Tudor Court; he played another famous schemer of the period, Thomas Boleyn in the 2008 film of Phillipa Gregory’s book The Other Boleyn Girl (S&S/Scribner).

Unfortunately, this casting means production may be delayed a year, since Rylance has other commitments to complete, including an upcoming play, Nice Fish, at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis.

Mantel is currently writing Mirror And The Light, the third book in the Tudor series (and fending off criticism for her misunderstood remarks about Kate Middleton).