Category Archives: Movie Adaptations

'300' tops box office

Posted on March 14, 2007 by Keren

Yahoo News reports:

The tale of the Spartan battle of Thermopylae as seen through the unique eyes of graphic novelist Frank Miller captured the top spot at the box office over the weekend, commanding a take of nearly $71 million to become the year’s first blockbuster.

The movie, an adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 (a superhero-style take on the battle of Thermopylae) was shot entirely indoors, with the movie’s impressive skies and landscaped added in later digitally. In an interview with Wired News, director Zack Snyder said, “I wanted to get at the book as much as I could. Shooting outside, we couldn’t control the skies and lighting to the extent I wanted to. And the landscapes are different than in real life. They don’t exist in the real world, only in Frank Miller’s imagination.”

For a taste of the finished product (and some eye candy), see this gallery of photos on the Wired site.

Posted in Articles, Film, Graphic novels, Interviews, Movie Adaptations |

Pullman grants Butterfly Tattoo film rights

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Mark

Philip Pullman may have hit Hollywood paydirt by selling the rights to the His Dark Materials trilogy to New Line Cinema – but it seems his interest in film goes beyond the bottom line.

According to the Independent’s Pandora, the author has awarded the film rights to an earlier novel, The Butterfly Tattoo, free of charge to a small independent Dutch company that promotes educational projects for young people. Dynamic Entertainment now has the option to adapt the book, in exchange for 10% of any eventual revenues. Filming is expected to begin in August.

Guardian Unlimited Books has the full story, which includes a brief description of the story. It notes that the film’s budget is just 200,000 euros – quite a difference from the £83m being spent on The Golden Compass.

Posted in Authors, Movie Adaptations |

Article at IGMS details the pros and woes of book to movie adaptations

Posted on February 11, 2007 by Heidi Kathleen

Here’s how it works: a producer or production company “options” a book — that is, buys the rights (typically for several thousand dollars) to adapt the book for a period of time (typically from eighteen months to two years). If the producers have not adapted the book when agreed-upon the period of time lapses, the rights revert back to the author. [3] Books are optioned far more than they are produced, and some books have been optioned more than once. But sometimes, a book manages to slog its way through the development process and get filmed.

Is this a good experience for an author?

The rest of the article can be read here.

Posted in Articles, Film, Movie Adaptations, Science fiction/fantasy |

Author Cussler sues over film treatment of Sahara

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Keren

Best-selling writer Cussler, who has featured Pitt in 19 of his 32 books, is suing Crusader Entertainment, owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz, for making so many script and plot changes to the film version of his book “Sahara” that it was doomed to box-office failure.

“This was not the dramatic, gripping story Clive Cussler told. As a result, the audience just didn’t care,” Fields said in his opening statement. He added that the movie “Sahara” released in 2005 with Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz lost between $60 million and $70 million.

In a countersuit, Crusader said Cussler had overstated by tens of millions the number of books he had sold to induce them to enter the agreement.

Cussler is seeking millions of dollars in damages.

Link to the Yahoo News article

Posted in Articles, Authors, Film, Movie Adaptations |

Song of Ice & Fire to be adapted for TV

Posted on January 20, 2007 by Mark

From Variety:

HBO has acquired the rights to turn George R.R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy series “A Song of Fire & Ice” into a dramatic series to be written and exec produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

“Fire” is the first TV project for Benioff (“Troy”) and Weiss (“Halo”) and will shoot in Europe or New Zealand. Benioff and Weiss will write every episode of each season together save one, which the author (a former TV writer) will script.

View the full story here.

Posted in Movie Adaptations, Science fiction/fantasy |

Scripter award finalists announced

Posted on January 10, 2007 by Keren

The author-screenwriter teams behind “Children of Men,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “The Illusionist,” “The Last King of Scotland” and “Notes on a Scandal” have been selected as finalists for the University of Southern California’s Scripter Award.

The Scripter, awarded annually by the USC Libraries, is the only honor that recognizes both the authors and screenwriters of a produced book-to-film adaptation. The winner will be announced Friday and will be feted at a February 18 ceremony.

Read the list of finalists at the full Yahoo! News article.

Posted in Articles, Authors, Awards, Movie Adaptations |

Novelists not always welcome in Hollywood

Posted on January 7, 2007 by Keren

Yahoo! has an interesting article about the role of authors when Hollywood decides to put their books on the big screen:

So it was, and so it almost always is: Authors write books. Screenwriters write screenplays. And while there are strong exceptions to every rule (Herman Wouk, Larry McMurtry), a savvy author tends to know when to step aside and let the filmmakers take charge — or, in some cases, the sausage makers. For some reason, authors tend to refer to pork products when discussing Hollywood.

Zoe Heller, author of “What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel” (now “Notes on a Scandal”), shared a few notes with screenwriter Patrick Marber but kept away from much of the production. “I didn’t want to be a fifth wheel lurking around the set,” she says. “It’s a bit like that old line about seeing sausages made: The sausage may be highly delicious when it comes out, but I didn’t necessarily want to be involved in the sausage-making process.”

Whether in the sausage factory or not, authors say they try to detach their mental ownership of the stories from the film versions. Assured that their novel is out on the shelves, they do some self-convincing that what goes up on the screen is from another universe.

Ultimately, watching a professionally made, well-acted version of their story takes some of the sting away.

Link to the Yahoo! News article

Posted in Articles, Authors, Film, Movie Adaptations |

List of Eragon Movie Reviews

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Mark

The movie Eragon (which is based on the widely-read fantasy novel with the same title) is in theaters today. I’ve taken the time to compile a listing of reviews, along with a short excerpt and a link to the full article. So far, the critics don’t seem too impressed.

Some of the major ones:

The New York Times (View Full Review):

“Eragon” is what happens when misguided studio executives option a novel written by a teenager (Christopher Paolini) with a head full of Anne McCaffrey and Ursula K. Le Guin. Not full enough, however; this boy-and-his-dragon fantasy set in a land bristling with Tolkienesque nomenclature and earnest British actors is as lacking in fresh ideas as Tim Allen’s manager.

CNN / Associated Press (View Full Review):

This sword-and-sorcery tale loots its plot points and character archetypes from millennia of standard-issue mythology, old and new. It does offer some striking visual effects and a climactic battle of computer-generated combatants that’s rousing enough, even if it looks like outtakes from the epic clash of “The Return of the King.”

BBC (View Full Review):

Jeremy Irons reminiscing on days of yore when “men rode astride magnificent beasts” will probably make grown-up viewers titter but young children shouldn’t mind the cheesy bluster of Eragon.

Twelve others:

(more…)

Posted in Movie Adaptations |

Best Selling Children's Classic Heading to Big Screen

Posted on November 20, 2006 by Aurel

Judith Viorst’s 2 million plus selling children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, has been acquired by Columbia Pictures. Mike Bender is penning the adaptation and Neil Moritz is set to produce. Moritz credits his son for the project’s inception.

“This is one of my son’s favorite books, and I would read it to him every day,” Moritz said. “And a few months ago, out of the blue, he asked, ‘When are they making this into a movie, Daddy?’ And I said, Why didn’t I think of that?”

Read the Book Standard/Hollywood Reporter Article

Posted in Children's books, Movie Adaptations, Uncategorized |

From book to film, U.S. fast food industry examined

Posted on November 20, 2006 by Keren

A movie about the fast food industry – with a bite. Yahoo News discusses some of the problems and processes involved in bringing it to the big screen.

Journalist Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation,” said he struggled to find a publisher for his 2001 nonfiction book that became a surprise bestseller. Five years later, Schlosser said he ran into similar problems trying turning the book — an indictment of the U.S. fast food industry subtitled “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” — into a film of the same name. It opened in U.S. cinemas on Friday.

“I spent more than a year trying to get a documentary made,” said Schlosser, who met with several networks but said he became troubled by their connections to fast food advertisers. “In the end I just felt uncomfortable,” he told Reuters. “I would rather a film never be made than a film be made that was a sellout, a film that took out the sharp edges and smoothed them over a little bit.”

Link to the full Yahoo News article

Posted in Articles, Authors, Movie Adaptations, Non-fiction |