The last look viewers will have before the expected summer blockbuster Wonder Woman has just been released. The film arrives in theaters on June 2nd.

The trailer aired during the MTV Movie & TV Awards and has received media scrutiny. Offering a shot by shot analysis, Screen Rant says the trailer “reveals why a hero like Diana is needed now more than ever. Not just in the DCEU [DC Extended Universe], but the superhero genre as a whole.”

Two leveled readers have already published: Wonder Woman: I Am an Amazon Warrior, Steve Korte, Lee Ferguson (HC; OverDrive Sample) and Wonder Woman: Meet the Heroes, Steve Korte, Lee Ferguson, Jeremy Roberts (HC; OverDrive Sample).

More tie-ins are on the way including Wonder Woman: The Official Movie Novelization by Nancy Holder (PRH/Titan Books) and Wonder Woman: The Junior Novel by Steve Korte (HC/HarperFestival).

After the film premieres, DC begins a new series called DC Icons, written by best-selling YA authors.

It kicks off in August with Leigh Bardugo’s Wonder Woman: Warbringer (PRH/RH Books for Young Readers; Listening Library). Following that, Marie Lu takes on Batman (January 2018), Matt de la Pena tackles Superman (May 2018), and Sarah J. Maas stalks Catwoman (September 2018).

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the comics artist Andie Tong, known for his work on various DC series, sent Bardugo a sketch of Wonder Woman “sitting atop a pile of defeated criminals, rewarding herself with another chapter of Bardugo’s Six of Crows novel.”

Hulu has given a pilot order for an adaptation of the Eisner-winning comic Locke & Key reports Deadline Hollywood, in what they call a “very competitive situation.” The hourly drama will be based on Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s hit series.

Hill along with Carlton Cuse (Lost, Bates Motel, The Strain) are running the project, with Hill writing the script. The director of Doctor Strange, Scott Derrickson, is on board to direct the series if the pilot is approved.

Two earlier efforts to adapt the horror/fantasy blend have failed. The Hollywood Reporter points out that Rodriguez’s fantastic art is difficult to translate to the screen, but the group running the project this time may be able to carry if off. Hulu is ready for more ambitious content, THR maintains, and Cuse is skilled and proven in the genre, as is Derrickson. Finally Hill, more than anyone, should be able get the script right while also honoring his comic readers.

Also in its favor, a hit audio adaptation was a huge success in 2016, winning an Audie as well as several nominations.

The comic, which ranges across multiple releases plus collected editions, tells the complicated story of the Locke family, the Keyhouse estate, demons, possession, and keys. Tor.com offers a reread of the first volume which gives a taste of the story. The newest volume will come out in August, Locke & Key: Heaven and Earth (PRH/IDW).

It’s a light week for adaptations in theaters, as the movie business focuses on Sunday’s Academy Awards.

The Girl With All the Gifts, a zombie horror film based on M. R. Carey’s novel of the same title, opens in theaters and on VOD on Friday, after having already aired on DirecTV.

The film stars Sennia Nanua, Gemma Arterton, Dominique Tipper, and Glenn Close. It is directed by Colm McCarthy (Sherlock, Doctor Who).

Reviews are widely mixed.

The Hollywood Reporter was not impressed, writing it is “rather dreary … A runaway success like 28 Days Later or The Walking Dead, this is not.” Variety agrees, writing it is “A tired attempt to board the zombie bandwagon.”
However, The Guardian was enthusiastic, saying it is a “fiercely intelligent British chiller … [that] breathes new life into age-old horror tropes, taking familiar fears of zombies, the apocalypse and eerie children and spinning them in surprising ways.”

io9 goes further, saying it “Has Joined the Horde of All-Time Great Zombie Films … It’s the rare zombie film that innovates the genre with skill and excitement.”

There is no tie-in but the timing is good for Carey. He is writing a prequel, The Boy on the Bridge (Hachette/Orbit), due out May 2.

It’s deja vu all over again for Tulip Fever, which was scheduled to open this weekend. Based on the historical novel by Deborah Moggach, it was suddenly pulled from its original July 2016 opening. Now, just days before it was to open on its new date, it has been postponed yet again, this time to an unspecified date [UPDATE: It has now been rescheduled to August 25, 2017].

The Playlist says it was “at one time perceived as a big-ticket project. But somewhere along the way, it seems it was a promise that couldn’t be lived up to … Tulip Fever is starting to smell like another recent star-studded Weinstein picture that mostly flamed out: last year’s restaurant drama Burnt.”

For those getting the feeling that the film will never air, IndieWire notes the studio “has a history with these kind of recurring delays. Most recently, the company also moved the release date back twice for The Founder, the Michael Keaton-starring McDonald’s origin story … The decision to push Tulip Fever comes after a tough year for virtually all independent distributors in the theatrical marketplace.”

There is no official tie-in. Moggach has had success with adaptations of her novels before. She wrote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

The film adaptation of Dave Eggers’s dark satire about Silicon Valley, The Circle, is heading to the big screen on April 28, 2017. It features big time stars Karen Gillan, Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and John Boyega.

The first trailer has been released, causing enough stir to send the book rising on Amazon, moving from #338 to #213.

In print form, the novel did well, debuting at #7 on the NYT bestselling fiction list and attracting media attention, including a feature in The New Yorker.

A tie-in edition hits shelves in late March: The Circle (MTI), Dave Eggers (PRH/Vintage; RH/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

If anyone doubted that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be a major release on May 5, this should change their minds. The trailer had 81 million views in the 24 hours after it was released. Director James Gunn enthused on Facebook, 

Holy crap! With 81 million views in its first 24 hours, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Teaser Trailer is the SECOND BIGGEST TEASER TRAILER EVER (after Beauty and the Beast), and the biggest Marvel Studios Teaser ever! No kidding – I’m, like, floored …

It probably has something to do with that adorable Baby Groot.

See our earlier post for information on tie-ins.

A trailer for the comic book based on Neil Gaiman’s short story, “How to talk to Girls at Parties,” (available online in both text and audio) was just released and is getting picked up by many entertainment news sites.

The graphic novel, released on Tuesday, is also set to be adapted as a movie, starring Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman and Alex Sharp. Gaiman is the executive producer for the project, set to begin filming in November.

Neil Gaiman’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Neil Gaiman, Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon
Dark Horse Books,:July 5, 2016
9781616559557, 1616559551
Hardcover
$17.99 USD, $23.99 CAD

Today. we will learn if  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies adapted from the book by Seth Grahame-Smith (Quirk Books, 2009), overturns the box office curse that afflicted its predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. On the other hand, it’s a safe bet that the Nicholas Sparks’ adaptation The Choice will open well and continue into Valentine’s Day weekend.

Two adaptations open next week:

  
How to Be Single is a rom-com (with a stress on the com) that traces the fates of a group of singles on the dating scene in NYC. It stars Rebel Wilson, Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann, Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, and Damon Wayans Jr.

It is loosely based (with a stress on “loosely”) on How to Be Single, Liz Tuccillo (S&S/Washington Square Press; OverDrive Sample – also in mass market). Tie-ins came out just a few weeks ago.

The second movie is a big anti-Valentine’s Day play (note the poster).

Deadpool features the Marvel Comics character who has evolved from villain to antihero. Ryan Reynolds portrayed him in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and reprises the role in this feature.

There is no an official tie-in, but the wise-cracking, super-skilled mercenary features in many comics, so many that Den of Geek provides a lengthy guide to reading the oeuvre.

Interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, Neil Gaiman talked about his latest book, The Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition, (DC Comics/Vertigo) which has held the #1 spot on the NYT Hardcover Graphic Books since it’s release 4 weeks ago. It collects a 6-part prequel to his Sandman stories.

In the introduction to the interview, Terry Gross says that Norman Mailer called the series “a comic strip for intellectuals.”

There have been several efforts to turn the books into a movie or TV series. Currently a film version is in the works and may begin shooting next year (Fox’s upcoming series Lucifer is based on one of the Sandman characters, featured in a spin-off written by Mike Carey).

In the interview, Gaiman declares that comics are no longer a “gender-determined medium, which always seemed completely barking mad to me.”

One of the leading creators of massively popular and critically praised comics deeply appreciates librarians.

In a feature posted this week in The Daily Beast, writer Emil Lendof introduces Brian K. Vaughan to readers as:

“the golden boy of modern comic book writing… He has the reputation and awards (10 Eisner wins and 10 Eisner nominations) to hold the title, and he’s been compared to comics titans like Frank Miller and Alan Moore. From blockbuster hits like Y: The Last Man, the space opera Saga, and TV writing/producing credits on some of the best seasons of Lost and Under the Dome, Vaughan has become one of the preeminent comics authors.”

The pair sat down for an interview that ranged from Vaughan’s appreciation for the artists he works with to the ways he works out his fears and anxieties in comic form. He also discussed the frequent calls for banning his series Saga and in the process gives a shout-out to librarians:

“The main reason why it hasn’t been banned is because of librarians, who are at the forefront of anti-censorship. They’ve been so great about saying, “It’s fine if you don’t want your children to read Saga, but this is not how libraries work.” It’s frustrating that some people challenge it, but I am so grateful for librarians that let people check out whatever materials they want.”

Librarians who do not yet know his name are likely to be hearing much more about him. The Hollywood Reporter has news that Vaughan’s comic Y: The Last Man, which he created with artist Pia Guerra, has just been bought by FX with plans to make it into a live action series. Nina Jacobson (Hunger Games) and Brad Simpson (World War Z) will produce and Vaughan will co-write. An air date has yet to be set as the project is still in its very early days.

There’s been some major changes on the film adaptation of Kevin Powers’ 2012 National Book Award finalist, The Yellow Birds, (Hachette/Little, Brown). Benedict Cumberbatch, originally set to play the lead, has been replaced by Jack Huston, reports Deadline. The film also has a new director, Alexandre Moors, who replaces David Lowery.

Bringing some extra star power to the production, Jennifer Anniston is joining the cast.

All this activity indicates the project is closer to becoming a reality.

Potter fans rejoice! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the next trilogy in the Harry Potter film series, is moving closer to the screen now that director David Yates has issued an open call for auditions to fill the role of Modesty. CNN reports that Yates is searching for a female actress aged 8-12, who could become a household name like Hermione.

The film trilogy, the first of which is due out on November 18, 2016, follows the story of Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

The Warner Bros. films, as Flickering Myth suggests, have a good chance of  replicating the look and feel of the HP movies. J. K. Rowling wrote the screenplay and the director, producer, production designer, and executive producer all worked on multiple HP films.

As we reported earlier, the movies are based on a Hogwarts textbook (a real edition of the fictional text was published in 2001, with a special charity edition out last month) and follows Scamander’s search for magical creatures.  IMDb neatly summarizes the plot: “The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York’s secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school.”

Based on the 2004 Marvel comic Ultimate Fantastic Four, which reimagines the original characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (for a layman’s breakdown, check the Washington Post‘s “Comics Riffs” column), the teaser trailer for Fantastic Four just debuted online.

The movie appears in theaters, August 7, 2015.

The latest addition to the Marvel film universe is a tiny superhero, Ant-Man, featured on the cover of the new issue of Entertainment Weekly.

In the role of the unlikely superhero is a somewhat unlikely comic actor, Paul Rudd (echoes of Chris Pratt in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy).

The first trailer for the live-action film adaptation, which opens July 17th, was shown at the end of the first episode of Marvel’s Agent Carter on ABC Tuesday night.

If you’re not fully conversant with Marvel comics, Entertainment Weekly offers a Ant-Man primer to help the uninitiated make sense of the  trailer.

A dizzying number of tie-ins are on their way, including an Ant-Man “prose novel” (the NYT discovered “reverse adaptations” this week), as well as leveled readers and chapter books for kids and compilations of the original comics. See the full list in our catalog of media tie-ins on Edelweiss.

Good grief! It’s been nearly 50 years since A Charlie Brown Christmas first hit TV screens.

And, next year, the 65th anniversary of Charles Schulz’s first Peanuts comic strip, will be marked by a new animated movie featuring the characters.

The movie’s producers appeared on the Today Show last week and introduced the kids who will voice many of the characters.

Eerily, however, Snoopy and Woodstock will be “voiced” by the late Bill Melendez, the voice of those characters in A Charlie Brown Christmas, via sampled recordings.

A new trailer is also available (note: it says movie is coming “Next Christmas,” but the release date is actually Nov. 6)

A tie-in scheduled for next summer — many more are sure to come:

Peanuts Movie Original Graphic Novel
Charles Schulz
S&S/BOOM! Studios,  August 11, 2015
Trade Paperback
$9.99 USD

The Oregonian reports that Oregon City’s library was closed Wednesday and “you can blame it onThe Librarians.”

Not the actual librarians, that is, but the upcoming 10-episode TNT TV series, The Librarians, currently shooting in Oregon City and scheduled to begin airing in December.

The Librarians continues the TNT franchise of three movies, starring Noah Wylie as The Librarian. The first, broadcast in 2004, was Quest for the Spear. It was adapted as a graphic novel as was the second, Return to King Solomon’s Mines. The third, The Curse of the Judas Chalice, was released in 2008. All three movies were also released on DVD.

The new series uses the plural, as Wylie will be joined by others. According to the TNT press release,

The Librarians centers on an ancient organization hidden beneath the Metropolitan Public Library dedicated to protecting an unknowing world from the secret, magical reality hidden all around. This group solves impossible mysteries, fights supernatural threats and recovers powerful artifacts from around the world.

Solving impossible mysteries? All in a librarian’s days work.The other two tasks are not generally in the job description.