Can you self-publish a movie?

When releasing Upstream Color this month, director and writer  Shane Carruth opted to to take the DIY distribution route. The film opened in theaters in 20 markets around the country, followed by a wide range of platforms from iTunes to YouTube to Netflix to DVD. Carruth explained his choice:

As a filmmaker you try to make a compelling case for an audience to stick around minute by minute with what is on the screen … By also crafting the marketing we’re still doing that, still storytelling, but we’re trying to make a case for an audience to show up. Hopefully for viewers, framing the film this way and staying true to the film’s intent makes it a bit more of an intimate relationship.

Read more

Marvel has a new television show for fans of The Avengers film. The trailer for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series has been released, bringing back actor Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson.

In the past 24 hours, the #CoulsonLives hashtag has appeared in thousands of tweets. The trailer is embedded above–what do you think?

ABC plans to air the show on Tuesday nights starting in fall 2013. The Avengers director Joss Whedon helmed the first episode. Whedon wrote the script with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.

Read more

An official trailer has been released for James Franco’s As I Lay Dying film adaptation. We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

According to Deadline, the story follows “a Mississippi family that sets out to fulfill their matriarch’s final wish.” The movie will screen at the Cannes Film Festival.

Franco directed, acted, and co-wrote the script based on William Faulkner‘s celebrated novel. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Franco said he hopes to “be loyal to the book.”

Over at Out of Print, you can play The Great Gatsby video game and donate books at the same time.

Follow this link to play. For every player that reaches a score of 25,000 on the game, Out of Print will donate one book. So far, 280 books have already been donated.

Back in 2011, Charlie Hoey and Peter Malamud Smith created the video game, turning the famous novel into a Nintendo-era video game.

The first trailer for the movie adaptation of Orson Scott Card‘s Ender’s Game has been released.

We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think? Here’s more about the film, from the release:

In the near future, a hostile alien race called the Formics have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young minds to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy but strategically brilliant boy, is recruited to join the elite.

Read more

Dexter star Michael C. Hall will adapt Matthew Specktor‘s novel American Dream Machine as a Showtime TV series.

Read a free sample of the novel at this link. Dexter showrunner Scott Buck has also joined the project and Specktor will write the screenplay. Tin House published the novel in April. Here’s more about the deal, from the publisher’s release:

 Michael C. Hall will serve as executive producer and is eyeing a role in the series. The project is set in Hollywood in the 1970s and centers on the titular talent agency. American Dream Machine is a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood, and by extension, American life.

Months before the release of the first Mortal Instruments adaptation, lead actors Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower have confirmed that they will return for the second installment of the franchise.

Director Harald Zwart will also be back to helm  City Of Ashes, the next film based on Cassandra Clare’s series. The film will hit theaters on August 23, 2013.

Follow this link to watch the official trailer for the City of Bones movie.

Read more

With 21 days left in the campaign, King Post has raised more than $65,500 on Kickstarter for “Moby Dick, or, The Card Game.”

Each card will showcase a quote from Herman Melville‘s beloved novel. The finished product will feature a deck that consists of more than 100 unique cards, 40 custom oil makers, 2 dice, and a rule book. We’ve embedded a video about the project above–what do you think? Here’s more about the project:

Just as one of Melville’s goals in writing the book was to bring landlubbers like us into the glorious and tragic world of the whaler at sea, our game encourages players to interact with the text in a new, exciting and immersive way. Even without a knowledge of the novel, playing the game will clue you into the relationships between key sailors and the various perils and processes of hunting whales in the 19th century.

Read more

TNT will resurrect William Brinkley‘s 1988 novel, The Last Ship. Ten episodes of the post-apocalyptic TV show will launch in 2014.

It will star Eric Dane from Grey’s Anatomy and Transformers director Michael Bay will executive produce. Bay’s Platinum Dunes will partner with Brad Fuller and Andrew Form on the project. Showrunner Hank Steinberg and executive producer Steven Kane wrote the pilot script. Here’s more from the release:

The story opens with a global catastrophe that nearly decimates the world’s population. Because of its positioning, the Navy destroyer U.S.S. Nathan James avoids falling victim to the devastating tragedy. But now the crew and its captain must confront the reality of their new existence in a world where they may be among the few remaining survivors … Dane stars as Captain Tom Chandler, a career Navy man who is authoritative and decisive, but also fair and courageous … The Last Ship also stars Rhona Mitra (Strike Back) as Rachel Scott, a strong-willed, intelligent and fearless paleomicrobiologist assigned to the Nathan James to investigate the cause of billions of deaths worldwide. (Via Alex Weprin)

Quirk Books, Drexel University’s Urban Playground and Dragon Jedi staged a few scenes from William Shakespeare’s Star Wars outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art recently.

Below, we’ve embedded a video of the reenactment. Museum goers were surprised by Star Wars costumes, R2D2 and “a number of weaponized baguettes.” Here’s more about Ian Doescher‘s book, coming in July:

Return once more to a galaxy far, far away with this sublime retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare’s greatest plays … Reimagined in glorious iambic pentameter—and complete with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations–William Shakespeare’s Star Wars will astound and edify Rebels and Imperials alike. Zounds! This is the book you’re looking for.

Read more