The Entertainment Factor: Novel Adaptation: Movies, TV Shows, Music and Video Games

Showing posts with label Novel Adaptation. Show all posts

Friday, October 11, 2013

Nicole Kidman to Star in THE SILENT WIFE

Nicole Kidman ("Stoker") is set to star in the psychological thriller "The Silent Wife", an adaptation of A.S.A. Harrison’s novel of the same name. The book tells the story of a couple whose marriage is going through a bad patch which ultimately ends in murder. More intriguing is that the story is told in alternating voices, from the point-of-view of the wife and the husband. The novel was Harrison's first novel and it became a massive hit, but the author died just weeks before it was published. Nicole Kidman will also produce the film through her Blossom Films production company. Here is the full synopsis of the book:

"Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose."

- Order The Silent Wife Novel from Amazon.com -

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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Chloe Grace Moretz to Star in NOVEMBER CRIMINALS

Chloe Grace Moretz, the star of the upcoming Stephen King adaptation "Carrie", has signed on to star in another adaptation. The novel is Sam Munson's "November Criminals" and the movie will be directed by Sacha Gervasi ("Hitchcock"). Gervasi has also rewritten the script which was originally written by Steven Knight ("Easter Promises"). The story focuses on a rebellious teenager who decides to investigate the mysterious death of a classmate. Moretz will be playing the lead female role of Pheobe. Here is a full synopsis of the novel:

"A dark and hilarious pot-infused novel of teenage maladjustment from a compelling new voice in American fiction. For a high school senior Addison Schacht has a lot of preoccupations, like selling drugs to his classmates, getting into college, and his complicated relationship with his best friend (NOT his girlfriend) Digger. And he’s just added another to the list: the murder of his classmate Kevin Broadus, and his own obsessive plan to investigate the death. When presented with an essay question on his application to the University of Chicago – What are your best and worst qualities? – Addison finds himself provoked into giving his final, unapologetic say about all of the above and more, and the thrilling result is an unforgettable trip through the Washington, D.C. teenage underworld."

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Monday, September 30, 2013

Jennifer Lawrence Reunites with Director Gary Ross for EAST OF EDEN Adaptation

Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence ("Silver Linings Playbook") will reunite with "The Hunger Games" director Gary Ross for a new adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel "East of Eden". And since Steinbeck's work is much too vast and complex for one movie, it seems that the filmmakers are pondering dividing the story into two installments. The story is set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley and follows the intertwined destinies of the Trask and Hamilton families, "whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel". "East of Eden" was previously adapted in 1952 by Elia Kazan and starred James Dean and Richard Davalos. Jennifer Lawrence is set to star in the new adpatation as "Cathy Ames, the cold and cruel mother of the boys and estranged wife of the farmer. The films will tell their stories, leading into the rivalry between their sons.".

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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam to Lead FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Adaptation

Universal Pictures has announced that Dakota Johnson ("21 Jump Street") and Charlie Hunnam ("Pacific Rim") have been chosen to star as the lead characters in the adaptation of E.L. James's erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey". The novel is the first in a trilogy of books, one of the fastest-selling book series ever. The film will be directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson ("Nowhere Boy") and the adaptation written by Kelly Marcel ("Terra Nova" TV series). The trilogy follows the relationship of 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey (Hunnam) and college student Anastasia Steele (Steele) and the other two books are titled "Fifty Shades Darker" and "Fifty Shades Freed". If the first film will be a success, I expect that Universal will also adapt the sequel novels, as well. "Fifty Shades of Grey" opens in theaters on August 1, 2014.

Here is the official press release:

"Dakota Johnson will star as Anastasia Steele, the lead female character in Universal Pictures and Focus Features’ highly anticipated film adaptation of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” it was announced today. The announcement about Ms. Johnson’s casting in Fifty Shades of Grey was made today by Ms. James.

Ms. Johnson’s first notable screen role was in the multi-Academy Award-winning 2010 feature The Social Network, on which Mr. De Luca and Mr. Brunetti were producers. Her subsequent movies include the upcoming feature Need for Speed, 21 Jump Street, and Universal Pictures’ The Five-Year Engagement. She also starred as Kate in the Fox Network comedy series Ben and Kate, which aired during the 2012-2013 season. Ms. Johnson is currently shooting the feature film Cymbeline.

Charlie Hunnam will star as Christian Grey, the lead male character in Universal Pictures and Focus Features’ highly anticipated film adaptation of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” it was announced today.

Mr. Hunnam currently stars as a regular on the critically acclaimed FX series Sons of Anarchy. His feature film credits include Pacific Rim, Children of Men, Cold Mountain, and Nicholas Nickleby.

The film, which will be released by Focus Features on August 1, 2014 in North America, is being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and produced by Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti alongside E L James, the author of the #1 bestselling book on which the film is based. The screenplay is by Kelly Marcel. The announcement about Mr. Hunnam’s casting in Fifty Shades of Grey was made today by Ms. James.

“Fifty Shades of Grey” has become a global phenomenon and the trilogy has been translated in 50 languages worldwide since its release. To date, the “Fifty Shades” trilogy has sold over 70 million copies worldwide in e-book and print, making it one of the fastest-selling book series ever.

Universal and Focus acquired the rights to the three books in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy in March 2012. Focus Features will market and distribute the first film in partnership with Universal.

“Fifty Shades of Grey” follows the relationship of 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey and college student Anastasia Steele. Subsequent novels in the series, “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” explore the couple’s deepening relationship. For more information please see the official Fifty Shades of Grey Facebook page. "

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Friday, June 21, 2013

Anne Hathaway to Star in Historical Drama THE LIFEBOAT

Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway will star in the drama "The Lifeboat", an adaptation of Charlotte Rogan's historical novel "The Lifeboat". The story focuses on the events surrounding the sinking of a transatlantic ship in 1914 and Hathaway will play Grace, who is both a newlywed and a widow, and on trial for murder. Her husband managed to secure her a place on a lifeboat, but in the aftermath of the sinking, the survivors start to throw people overboard for fear of overloading the boat. The script is written by William Broyles Jr. ("Apollo 13", "Cast Away", "Jarhead") and Focus Features is still looking for a director. Here is a synopsis of the book:

"Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life. In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying Grace and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize has exceeded capacity. For any to live, some must die. As the castaways battle the elements and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she’d found. Will she pay any price to keep it? THE LIFEBOAT is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes."

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Director and Writer in Negotiations to Join Stephen King's THE STAND Adaptation

With the ambitious adaptation for "The Dark Tower" shut down because of budget concerns, it seems another of Stephen King's epic novels is getting the epic big screen treatment. Rumors of "The Stand" being adapted first began back in February, upsetting fans with the notion that the plot of the 1100-page novel (Uncut edition) will have to be severely cut down to fit a two-hour movie. Today, things are looking a lot better after Warner Bros. announced that "The Stand" will in fact be a three-movie adaptation, which I'm sure is enough to be faithful to the source material. Not only that, but Harry Potter franchise director David Yates, who worked on the last four movies in the series, and writer Steve Kloves, who penned every Potter script, except "Order of the Pheonix", are in negotiations with Warner to join the project. Considering the awesome résumés these guys have and the ton of money they made for Warner Bros., it's safe to assume that they're pretty much locked in. What's cool about Yates and Kloves is that they have already proven their competence when working with novel adaptations and their ability to turn them into something awesome. Also, the dark tone of Stephen King's novel will be a piece of cake for the two, as the last Harry Potter movies in particular were pretty bleak as well.

For those of you unfamiliar with King's epic horror novel, it tells the story of a deadly virus, accidentaly unleashed from a military research facility, that kills most of the world's population, except for a select few, who have to take sides in a post-apocalyptic battle between good and evil, represented by a sweet 108-year old southern black woman, Mother Abigail, and the ageless and sadistic Randal Flagg, The Walking Dude, respectively. The survivors receive visions and dreams as they travel across America to join up with either Abigail, or Flagg. The pawns are set for a deadly game, where only one side can emerge victorious and decide the fate of mankind. Some of you might remember the 1994 6-hour TV miniseries starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Ruby Dee, Rob Lowe and Miguel Ferrer. Even though they had to tone down the violence and truncate some plot elements, it's still widely regarded as a solid adaptation. You can read a review here.

The novel is very dark and brutal and focuses a lot on character developement, which makes a movie adaptation even harder, because of the large number of characters. There's not a lot of action that could translate into a full-blown blockbuster, but it could easily work as an atmospheric thriller, perhaps something not so different from Steven Soderbergh's soon-to-be-released "Contagion", at least in the novel's first half. The question is, will Warner Bros. consider the project worthwhile in terms of cost vs. profit, or will it have the same fate as Universal's "Dark Tower" adaptation, which was also meant to include three movies and two TV series and had big names like Ron Howard set to direct and Javier Bardem to star in the leading role ?

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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

THE DARK TOWER Cancelled by Universal

Today is a sad day for Stephen King fans as the epic adaptation of his series of seven novels, "The Dark Tower", has been cancelled. The main reason, cited to be the cause of the termination, is the huge budget required to make the three big screen movies and two TV series that covered King's popular series in its entirety. The project was announced at the end of last year and by March, it had already signed on a director, Ron Howard, and a major star, Javier Bardem. However, a few months ago, the first signs of trouble started to make themselves noticed as Universal, the studio producing the whole show, was beginning to voice worries regarding budget issues. Ron Howard came out and assured everyone that he very much intends to make it happen, but it was still up to the studio to come up with an answer. And that answer had a deadline: July 15.

Now, the fate of the project seems sealed. Since Universal has backed out of the deal, it doesn't seem very likely that other studios will be eager to pick up the project. To be honest, the whole thing was so ambitious, it was nothing short of madness. But it was beautiful madness and if they would have been able to pull it off, I'm pretty sure it would have been one for the history books. They could still do this as a TV mini-series, like the 1994 adaptation of "The Stand" which is pretty darn good (read a review here), or something in the lines of an HBO series, since they're known to be risk-takers and they do let filmmakers run free with their ideas. It remains to be seen what the future holds for "The Dark Tower".

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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Robert Pattinson Filming David Cronenberg's COSMOPOLIS [VIDEO]

This is an on-set video of Robert Pattinson at work in David Cronenberg's latest movie, "Cosmopolis", due for release sometime in 2012. The movie follows a 28 year old billionaire (played by Pattinson) who loses all of his fortune in one day. The story, based on a novel by Dom DeLillo, is a modern version of James Joyce's "Ulysses", taking place in New York, around the year 2000 and is meant to be a thorough insight into the flaws of society, which is pretty much Cronenberg's favorite topic. The movie also stars Keira Knightley, Paul Giamatti and Juliette Binoche.

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Thursday, June 9, 2011

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Controversial Poster

"The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas", more often known as "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. ramps up a gritty publicity campaign, befitting of a hard R-rated David Fincher movie. After the Red-Band trailer that debuted in theaters in May, which included some nudity and violence, the newest sample of gratuitous R-rated publicity is the teaser poster. On it you can see a topless Rooney Mara in full piercing gear and a grumpy Daniel Graig wrapping his arm around her in a protective manner.

The poster is available in two versions, one where the movie's release date covers the naughty bits and one where it's all fully revealed. Word on the web is that this is some kind of international one-sheet. Nevertheless, it's a bold campaign looking to capitalize on the controversial factor in order to get people to show up in theaters when the movie opens on December 21. Let's hope the movie is as ballsy as this poster seems to want to make us think it is. The Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy had some hardcore stuff in it, so you can imagine that Fincher's version has some big shoes to fill.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Remake Banner Poster

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Saturday, June 4, 2011

ANNA KARENINA Cast Update

Jude Law

Director Joe Wright is no stranger to literary adaptations. "Pride & Prejudice" and "Atonement" look great on his resume, although, to be honest, his version of the Jane Austen novel doesn't even come close to the 1995 BBC mini-series starring Colin Firth. Then again it's kind of hard to defeat 6 hours of faithful narrative. Now, Wright has taken on the task of adapting Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". Not an easy task at all, as the movie has had countless big screen and TV adaptations, two of the more recent being the 2000 TV mini-series starring Helen McCrory and Kevin McKidd and the 1997 movie starring Sophie Marceau, Sean Bean and Alfred Molina.

Keira Knightley

So far the movie has barely even finished the casting process, with all the key roles accounted for. Wright's favorite actress, Keira Knightley (worked together on both of his previously mentioned movies), has signed on to play Anna, while her "Pride and Prejudice" co-star Matthew Macfayden will play her brother, Prince Stepan Oblonsky. Jude Law is set to play Alexei Karenin, Anna's husband, and Aaron Johnson ("Kick-Ass") got the part of Count Vronsky, Anna's lover. Other unknown roles have been assigned to Saoirse Ronan, Olivia Williams (both have worked with Wright on "Hanna"), Kelly MacDonald ("Boardwalk Empire", "Trainspotting"), Andrea Riseborough ("Happy-Go-Lucky", "Made in Dagenham") and Domhnall Gleeson ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", "True Grit").

Wright clearly has a talented cast on his hands, though I'm still on the fence about Knightley. Knowing the director's previous works, it should be a lavish production filled with excellent art direction, a lush score and beautiful cinematography. Remains to be seen just how faithful he can stay to the source material with the limited running time and pacing issues that a cinematic project involves (the novel is about 800 pages long). Filming begins this fall, in Russia and the UK.

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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011) - Green Band Trailer

Here's a better quality trailer for David Fincher's "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", the adaptation/remake of Stieg Larsson's first novel in the Millennium trilogy and the 2009 Swedish movie. This is a green-band trailer, however, which means some meatier frames were cut out. For the lower quality red-band trailer click here.

The film looks like a return to Fincher's earlier works, like "Seven" or "The Game". It's going to be hard to stand up to comparisons, in the case of anyone who has seen the original adaptation, especially because even the Swedish trilogy felt like it borrowed a few pages from Fincher's visual playbook, and Rooney Mara is going to have a hard time living up to Noomi Rapace's legacy as Lisbeth Salander, the girl in the title. In a way, Mara looks a little too doll-faced for all that goth make-up, but early judgement is often wrong, so we'll wait and see. The movie opens on December 21, 2011. They sure have guts, releasing a hard-R movie right before Christmas.

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Monday, May 30, 2011

THE DARK TOWER Movie, Dead or Alive ?

The epic adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series has hit some difficulties. Universal has taken on the ambitious endeavour of translating King's novels into three films and several branching TV series in 2013 and 2012, respectively, but such a huge project obviously requires some hardcore resources to pull through. Ron Howard was set to direct, Akiva Goldsman ("Angels and Demons", "The Da Vinci Code", "Cinderella Man") was hired to write the script and Javier Bardem was brought on board for the lead role, but now Universal has taken a step back, because Comcast, the studio's owner, felt the costs are too big, so they paused pre-production. I can certainly see why Universal/Comcast are getting cold feet.

The project is beyond ambitious, it's crazy-ambitious. Still, Michael Rosenberg, president of entertainment at Imagine, denies the existence of any trouble, which means that they really want to get this going, as soon as possible. And, director Ron Howard has recently come out saying that :

"We had to pull back to our September start date due to budget delays and ongoing story development and logistical issues, but Dark Tower is moving forward, ...We're thinking of starting in early spring now. I can't really say who'll be in it yet, but Javier Bardem has shown a great deal of interest. We'll know by the end of the summer, when our flashing green light goes solid."

So, everyone's eager and willing, but there are still some issues to sort out, so Stephen King fans will have to wait some more before hearing some good news about the future of this adaptation. So, keep your ears and eyes open, for this summer will hold the fate of "The Dark Tower".

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