A press release this morning announcing that Sharp Entertainment at HarperCollins, the indie film production company's "strategic partnership" with the book publishing company, had acquired the film rights to Eli Gottlieb's novel Now You See Him, which William Morrow is publishing later this month, contained another interesting tidbit. It seems that Gottlieb (far left) and Jeffrey Sharp (left) will be participating with Morrow president Michael Morrison in a panel at the Sundance Film Festival next week called "From Books to Film—The Changing Landscape of the Film and Publishing Industries," and that the panel is part of a "social destination" package prepared for Sundance attendees by the Wall Street Journal, the most recent addition to the News Corp. portfolio.

Maybe somebody from mediabistro.com's West Coast blog, FishbowlLA, will be there and can tell us what happened.

photos: Gottlieb: Bookreporter.com; Sharp: Variety