One Last Bit of Adaptation News

MovieWeb reports:
On the Official Avatar Myspace Site, director Bryan Singer (X-Men) dropped a major announcement about one of his next projects. It appears that the director is headed back to the franchise he pioneered...
"I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men: First Class origins picture, which is kind of cool. I'm very excited."
X-Men: First Class is expected to inject a next-gen sensibility into the superhero series. - The studio has been leaning toward using the younger characters introduced in the previous films in future installments -- teenagers with powers taught at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.
To read the rest, click here.

Adaptation News

Reason #23433 I'm glad that Robert Downey Jr. never OD'd: The trailer to Iron Man 2.



The LATimes proclaims, "Greek mythology makes movie and TV comeback!" Here's hoping Homer has hired himself a good agent.


Wanna know exactly how J.D. Salinger feels about a Catcher in the Rye film? Letters of Note has a copy of an anti-adaptation screed handwritten by the reclusive author.


The Independent UK has put together a slide show featuring "the changing faces of Sherlock Holmes." Dilettante detectives can search for it themselves, everyone else can click here.


My favorite type of adaptation can't be seen on the big screen or the little screen, but in the small glass window on the oven. Click here to salivate over Through the Looking Glass cupcakes.


Natalie Portman has signed on to star in and produce a film based on the best-selling, sub-genre-creating book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. My note to Ms. Portman: Before they rip your flesh off, please have them gratuitously tear away your bodice.


CHUD's take on Disney's plans to adapt all four Fallen books seems pretty spot-on: "Well why the fuck not? Swap out retarded but lofty sounding vampiric and lycanthropic mythology for epic and highly-simplified biblical babble and voila, you've got some coattails to ride!"

Adaptation News

Daily Motion has an 'exclusive peek' at Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Click here to view.


Tom Clancy fans curious to know which book the next Jack Ryan film will be based on may be a bit disappointed. I'll let CHUD deliver the bad news.


Chipper movie based on chipper book uses chipper imagery for chipper inspiration. Or: The Road has end-of-the-world images inspired by Katrina aftermath.


A clip from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo film, along with a chat with its director, is available here. Then again, you could just watch the whole film illegally here.


Jonathan Lethem's insane sci-fi/noir Gun With Occasional Music has been optioned by the producers of the absolutely nuts Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans. This could be a very kooky combination.

Adaptation News (sorta like Book News, only we effed with the endings)

Filming of that gol durned Hobbit movie has been postponed again. This time, 'til summer of 2010.


I'm torn. While the three new clips from Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes look horrible, the film does star Robert Downey Jr. What to do, what to do...


Over at The Guardian UK, Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers describe the day they went to Maurice Sendak's house to ask him about filming Where the Wild Things Are.


Summit Films plans to milk its lone cash cow for as long as they can, splitting the fourth Twilight book, Breaking Dawn, up into two movies. Click here to read what that'll entail.


Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and Spike Lee (Do The Right Thing) are teaming up to adapt the French comic book, Miss: Better Living Through Crime. The book is about two 1920s criminals, Nola and Slim, who become killers for hire.


The Wire's Idris Elba has joined the cast of Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Marvel Comics' Thor. Already on board are Ray Stevenson (Punisher: War Zone), Tadanobu Asano (Taste of Tea), and Natalie Portman (far too many of my waking sex dreams).

Adaptation News(where 'faithful' is the only f-word you're not allowed to say)

Reverse adaptation! BBC Books has commissioned Michael Moorcock to write a Doctor Who novel. Predictably, the nerds are nervous.


Even a bitter, old a-hole like me finds a bit of holiday spirit in animatronic department store dioramas. Click here for a peek at Bergdorf's Fantastic Mr. Fox display.


Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson says that he had to shoot extra footage for the film after test audiences complained that the death scene wasn't violent enough.


McG's inevitably atrocious adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea would've been a unending source of cynical blog posts. Alas, Disney has sunk the project.


In an obvious bid for Oscars and accolades, Dreamgirls dream-girl Jennifer Hudson has signed on to star in Winnie, a biopic based on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's Winnie Mandela: A Life. Wasn't my undying lust enough for you, Jen?

Adaptation News: No Prose Purists Allowed!

Will Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson be donning the black and gold tights required to play Captain Marvel's arch nemesis, Black Adam? Um...maybe.


Sometimes the best way to introduce a link is to just quote the linked-to article's title: J.J. Abrams Finishes Reading Dark Tower, Decides Not To Adapt It. Ouch.


Jerry "Mick Jagger's ex-wife" Hall is set to star in a BBC adaptation of Martin Amis' 1984 novel, Money. As the last time anyone anywhere gave a damn about Ms. Hall was sometime in the mid-eighties, this sounds like the perfect fit.


I know one movie I won't be watching! Winona Ryder and Barry Pepper will star in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story. The ten-tissue telepic is based on the 12-step book by William Borchert.


Stephenie Meyer will appear on Oprah this Friday to talk millionaire to millionaire about the upcoming New Moon film. For uncomfortable kicks, will someone in the audience please ask O why she never chose a Twilight book for her Book Club?


A bankruptcy judge has ruled that Warren Beatty's suit against the Tribune Co. can go forward. Beatty is suing the bankrupt corporation over the TV and movie rights to Dick Tracy, while the Tribune Co. probably just wants to stop Beatty from making any more sh*tty Dick Tracy films.

Underwhelming Adaptation News(don't say I didn't warn you)

Those wacky Twilight books are being adapted again. This time, as Barbie dolls.


Entertainment Weekly has "first look" photos of the film version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and honestly...meh.


Equally unimpressive, the trailer for How To Train Your Dragon is now online. Ah, generic CGI cartoons -- I hate you and the stupid families that make you profitable.


The New York Times feigns surprised at what computers can do these days, heaping hyperbolic praise upon Robert Zemeckis' 3D/CGI A Christmas Carol.


Big budget television adaptations of four of China's most popular novels have the world's largest country glued to their sets. For a peek at what all of the hub-bub is about, click here.


2005's Sin City is one of those films that seems better and better the longer it's been since you've watched it. Apparently, directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller agree: Filming of the sequel will begin in the second half of 2010.


The NYTimes again, this time with a puff piece about Peter Jackson and his upcoming Lovely Bones adaptation. In it, you'll learn that Jackson had to approach this film in a 'different manner' than he did his gory, low budget ghost pics. I never would've guessed!

Recommended Viewing:Viggo Mortenson on The Road

Adaptation News

An extended trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland has hit the net. You can watch it here.


When you're through with that, head on over to CHUD.com for the new trailer to Martin Scorsese's film of Dennis Lehane's novel, Shutter Island.


While you're at CHUD, you might as well check out their Life of Pi adaptation update. A promising tease: It involves Ang Lee and a completed first draft screenplay.


Having already ripped off writer Harlan Ellison (for The Terminator), IO9 did a little digging around to find out which author James Cameron is cribbing for his newest sci-fi film, Avatar.


Jonathan Demme is planning to make an animated feature of Zeitoun, the best-selling Dave Eggers book about "a man’s true-life experiences in post-Katrina New Orleans." And I thought Shrek was depressing...


The Guardian UK takes Wes Anderson to task for marketing The Fantastic Mr. Fox with McDonald's tie-in toys. (My take: Well, what did you expect? It's not like kids are gonna order Happy Meals for books.)

Adaptation News(cuz books is fer nerdz!)

IO9 has 6 clips from Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox.



It's funny because it's true: Movieline's When Werewolves Go Wrong: 9 Awkward Images From the First New Moon Clip.


'Mumblecore' actor Joshua Leonard will make his directing debut with The Lie, based on a T.C. Boyle short story that originally ran in the New Yorker.


The BBC is developing a TV comedy-drama (what industry folks retardedly refer to as a "dramedy") based on Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently detective novels. Chortle.co has more.


Remember when I said that I was through posting Where The Wild Things Are links? I lied. Click here to see storyboard art from the film and to read an interview with the artist. (Oh, and as an added bonus, the same guy is doing storyboard art for Kenneth Branagh's upcoming adaptation of Thor, and he's got a couple tid-bits on that, too.)


Updated! More Thor news. Unsubstantiated rumor has it that Jude Law and Robert DeNiro have joined the cast. Yeah, I couldn't care less, either.


Doubly updated! Yet another WTWTA link. Trust me, though -- this one's a great one. Vanity Fair visited Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, where they got a guided tour of how the Wild Things were made. Hmn...I wonder if the Creature Shop is looking for a blogger...