Adaptation

As the release date for Thomas Pynchon's new novel nears, Publishers Weekly reports on rumors that a CAA agent is trying to sell the book's film rights.

As GalleyCat noted earlier this year, the new Pynchon novel is entitled Inherent Vice--a private detective yarn set in the 1960s. The summer release, with a California setting and surf-themed cover art, could make a surreal film script.

Here's more from the article: "Though a rep from CAA would not comment about it, we hear Bob Bookman at the agency is shopping the film rights to Thomas Pynchon's August-dropping new novel from Penguin, 'Inherent Vice.'"

"Donnie Darko" director Richard Kelly has adapted one of science fiction's more memorable concepts, turning Richard Matheson's 1970 short story ""Button, Button" into a full-length thriller.

Entitled "The Box," the film stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, and comes out October 30th. In an interview with the director, SciFiWire outlines the film's premise: a young couple could receive one million dollars at the push of a button, but if they accept, someone they don't know will die.

Here's an explanation from Kelly, taken from the interview: "Can they survive this? Can they uncover the truth, and can they redeem themselves and save themselves, perhaps? For me, that became the jumping-off point ... It felt like it could be the first act of an entire film, and it felt like something that was sort of asking to be resolved, in my mind. But resolved in a way that hopefully was still very faithful to the spirit of what I believe that Matheson was kind of trying to say in a nutshell: ... that the pushing of the button, ... it's the key to the downfall of man."

USA Today revealed the first publicity stills from director Tim Burton's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic story, "Alice in Wonderland."

The article revealed Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham's Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway's White Queen. In addition, the article describes how "Beauty and the Beast" screenwriter Linda Woolverton put a new spin on this surreal story.

Here's more from the article: "Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn't remember."

Earlier this year Carri Bugbee won an Shorty Award for a fictional Twitter feed--writing tweets about the life of "Mad Men" character Peggy Olson and gaining over 13,700 Twitter followers.

GalleyCat caught up with Bugbee at O'Reilly Media's Twitter Boot Camp, where experts pondered this new social networking tool. In this exclusive interview, Bugbee tells publishers how they can build Twitter campaigns for imaginary characters--including a speculative riff on a Twitter feed for a Michael Connelly character.

Besides writing about the adventures of a young secretary in New York City, Bugbee works for Big Deal PR, building social media campaigns for different companies.

Jean-Luc Godard, the French film director who publicly criticized Steven Spielberg for his handling of Schindler's List, is considering adapting a book about the Holocaust.

The director is eying "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million" by NY Times writer Daniel Mendelsohn, a title that focused on one journalist's attempt to find out what happened to his family in Poland during the Nazi occupation. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the book was popular in France--securing the French literary award, Prix Medicis.

Here's more about the potential film: "Godard, who turns 79 in the fall, never has taken on the Holocaust directly, but several of his films -- including the Algerian war picture 'Le petit soldat,' the anti-war pic 'Les carabiniers' and his most recent work, the 2004 triptych 'Notre musique' -- deal with complex political and philosophical questions."

When the live-action adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic storybook, "Where the Wild Things Are," hits theaters in October, Dave Eggers will release his 300-page loose adaptation of the book.

Eggers co-wrote the film script with director Spike Jonze, and the experience inspired him to write much, much longer. Sendak fans around the Internets have fiercely debated the merits of the live-action film, and this book will undoubtedly stoke flame-wars into a towering inferno.

Here's more from Amazon: "The Wild Things--based loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay cowritten with Spike Jonze--is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can't control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has interest in him. At the same time, Max finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness: he wears a wolf suit, bites his mom, and can't always control his outbursts." (Via Bookslut)

In what promises to be one of the most controversial literary adaptations of the year, a Sherlock Holmes trailer has surfaced on the Internets--showing Robert Downey Jr.'s remarkably two-fisted version of the classic detective.

The trailer is embedded above, but you can read more about the film at the Internet Movie Database. Directed by Guy Ritchie, the movie stars Jude Law as Dr. Watson and Rachel McAdams as Holmes' love interest.

Here's more from Entertainment Weekly: "We've already learned that, in the film, Holmes fights a Satanist, trades banter with a dashing Watson, and is foiled by McAdams' Irene Adler. Now we get to see it in action ... Are you already prepared to camp out for tickets to the Christmas release?" (Via David Moldawer)

Last week Esquire magazine called the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road "the most important movie of the year." Nevertheless, fan reactions to the movie trailer have been mixed.

The adaptation will star Viggo Mortensen and directed by Australian John Hillcoat--who directed musician and author Nick Cave's script for The Proposition. In addition, this BBC feature has an interview with McCarthy and Cave concerning the film--complete with a bit of the soundtrack.

Here's more from the article: "[The film] had its release date pushed back one full year last November. Everyone involved--director, producer, screenwriter--says there was no secret agenda to that, no worry to be inferred, no doubt on anyone's part about the final product. The movie, which required more than two hundred visual effects to decolorize a landscape stripped of life, simply wasn't ready." (Link via.)

What if Al Pacino starred in an adaptation of Malcolm Gladwell's nonfiction book "Blink?" The mind reels with title possibilities: Malcolm's Way, The Scarface Point, or Glengarry Glen Gladwell.

According to Hollywood Reporter, these and other puns will be coming to headline writers near you as Pacino is considering playing a role in a fictional adaptation of Gladwell's bestseller. The script was written by Stephen Gaghan--the director and screenwriter of Syriana.

Here's more from this mind-bending story: "Gaghan's script will center on the relationship between an older man (Pacino) and the twentysomething son he was never close to. The two reconnect early on in the pic, and the boy, an idealistic drifter who's teaching in a downtown New York school, and the father, a finance type living in Connecticut, must navigate their new relationship." (Via KFZuzulo)

Despite being set in a future world where books are treated like antiques, the Star Trek series has inspired a huge library of novelizations and independent books.

Before you check out the movie this weekend, brush up on your Star Trek bibliography at The Complete Starfleet Library--a database with pictures, trivia, and detailed information about every Star Trek book. The site even has links to all the Star Trek e-books, a growing list of futuristic digital titles.

Here's an entry about a famous Star Trek episode turned into a "fotonovel," a fascinating bit of publishing history: "An entertaining reminder of a time when very few people had VCRs, the photonovel is the next best thing to having a show on tape. It's a cross between a TV show, a comic book, and a paperback book, as it's made up of 300 full color photos from an episode, with dialogue and captions printed comic book style (word balloons, etc.), in standard paperback format."