Books Being Adapted to the Movie and Television Screen

News is flying left and right of bestselling books beginning the transformation from the page  to television or the movies. Here's a quick rundown of adaptations that have made the news in just the last week or so:

Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout 
 
Actress Frances McDormand is working on a possible series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Olive Kitteridge. The title character of the bestselling novel  is a seventh grade math teacher of a small east coast town and would be played by McDormand who is also working as a producer on the project for HBO. The book consists of 13 interconnected short stories that all center around a fishing village along the coast of Crosby, Maine. Deadline.com reports that McDormand optioned Olive Kitteridge before it won the Pulitzer Prize last year. It has also been reported that author of the novel, Elizabeth Strout, will be serving as a consulting producer.

Every Secret Thing
by Laura Lippman 
 
Frances McDormand will also serve as producer for second project at HBO that would adapt Laura Lippman's crime novel Every Secret Thing. Lippman's novel focuses on two pre-teen girls walking home after having been kicked out of a birthday party. The two find a baby in a carriage as they head home and inevitably the child ends up dead, the girls are put away for seven years and when they’re released, other children begin to disappear. Actress Diane Lane is in line to play the detective seeking to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Freedom  
by Jonathan Frazen


Jonathan Frazen has been having a pretty hot week. He's been labeled "Great American Novelist" by Time magazine landing the cover the weekly magazine, is interviewed in a feature in the September Vogue magazine complete with a whistful photo spread and an interview from the library of his Upper East Side apartment. A fitting way to end the week for a literary genius whose new novel Freedom will be released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux September 31st? News that uber-producer Scott Rudin has closed a deal on the rights to the new unreleased novel, deadline.com reports. This may or may not come as good news to Frazen fans who will note that ten years later Frazen's last novel The Corrections has yet to progress towards the big screen despite having been optioned by the very same Scott Rudin.


Keys To the City
by Joel Kostman

HBO seems to be all about the literary adaptations. With Game of Thrones on the way and the above news about Olive Kitteridge and Every Secret Thing in development, deadline.com is reporting that Joel Kostman's Keys to the City is to get the HBO treatment. Keys to the City is a collection of 14 stories based on the author's experience as a professional locksmith in New York City. It centers on a New York locksmith and offers a view of people and sights glimpsed beyond the doors he unlocks. The project will be adapted by Oscar winning scribe William Monahan whose previous work includes The Departed.


The Three Weissmanns of Westport 
By Cathleen Schine 

Also from HBO comes news of an adaptation of Cathleen Schine's The Three Weissmans of Westport, a novel released in February of this year. Schine will serve as a producer on the project. The story centers around a woman's search for meaning after her husband of 48 years walks out on her. She reconnects with her grown daughters who are also struggling to define their personal and professional identities.

Safe Haven 
by Nicholas Sparks

Relativity Media payed a reported $2 million dollars for rights to the newest Nicholas Sparks novel, Safe Haven due in stores September 14th. Sparks has a proven track record of successful novel to film adaptations and has name recognition that guarantees viewers. The deal was somewhat interesting, stipulating that whoever won the auction for the rights had nine months to develop a script or else the rights to the book would revert to Sparks with the two million remaining firmly in Sparks' pocket. It was a tough ask in an even tougher economy/market. It seems as though Sparks was determined that a film adaptation of Safe Haven not remain in limbo for years such as the case with the aforementioned Franzen and The Corrections. 

I Just Want My Pants Back  
By David Rosen 

Continuing its foray into scripted programming MTV recently greenlight a drama pilot based upon the David Rosen novel, I Just Want My Pants Back. The book centers around Jason Strider, a recent Cornell graduate who finds himself much more interested in marijuana, booze and sexual exploits. Shockingly, as the title suggests, the better part of the book centers around Jason trying to get his favorite pair of pants back from the woman who adequately quenched his sexual desire but fled wearing said pants after a second encounter. (Phew ... that took me several minutes to put together in a way that wouldn't get Loaded Questions an R rating.) MTV is touting the possible series as a romantic dramedy. Where the romantic part plays into it beats me! This is MTV after all.

Even more upcoming books making their way to the screen:

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
On the Road by Jack Keroauc
and Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Keywords: Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven, I Just Want My Pants Back, David Rosen, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, Keys to the City, Joel Kostman, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen, Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout, Cathleen Schine, Every Secret Thing, Laura Lippman, Books Turned Into Movies, HBO, MTV,

Books Turned Into Movies: Pillars of the Earth on Starz

You may have remembered my unbridled enthusiasm when I heard that that Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth was being turned into an eight hour miniseries for Starz starting, among others, Donald Sutherland and Ian McShane. The series is set to debut in the next couple of days but early reports of the series' quality have been less than glowing.

Mo Ryan of the Chicago Tribune's "The Watcher" certainly didn't mince her words when she wrote that the series had "made Ian McShane (temporarily) uninteresting." Before reading too much into her critique of the series it is important to note that Ryan doesn't sound like much of a fan of the novel, a novel that has been a critical and popular success for more than twenty years. She writes that the characters are sometimes wooden, that readers may find that the book contains more than enough information about the building of a cathedral in the 13th century but concedes that the book "gets the job done". This last bit is the nicest thing she says about both the book and the movie.

Ryan writes: "If you read "The Pillars of the Earth," don't expect a masterpiece, but you will get a reasonably decent yarn and you'll learn how and why these towering monuments to faith came to be built. If you watch the miniseries, you'll see precious raw materials wasted and shoddy construction everywhere you look. The fact that good scenes and character moments from the book are poorly executed or changed beyond recognition in the miniseries just adds insult to injury."

Golden Globe winner Ian McShane as Waleran Bigod.

Of the cast Ryan writres: "The cast looks positively stranded, almost off-balance, as if they were never allowed a chance to get their bearings and dig into their characterizations." The biggest crime, according the Ryan is the fact that Ian McShane as the devious Waleran Bigod. It is this critique that leaves me the most fearful of the quality of the series. McShane is magic in a bottle and if he's been rendered ineffective the series' hopes for success may be short-lived.

To be completely fair, Ryan's is hardly alone in her feelings about the Pillars of the Earth series. Entertainment Weekly, among others, has commented that the series is perhaps too dense and fails to tie plots together.

My hope is that if you've read the book and are a fan that there will be some redeeming qualities to be found. I enjoyed the book (although I found the sequel-esque World Without End to have followed the formula of the first novel far too closely) I have seen the sets and interviews with the actors who have touted the authenticity of the research and work that went into creating medieval England. As a fan of the novel I'll be tuning in this week looking for authenticity and any entertainment I can get - it has to be better than a night of America's Got Talent, right?

Related Links:

Loaded Questions: Pillars of the Earth Starts Filming! 
Loaded Questions: Our Interview with Author Ken Follett for the release of World Without End. 

ZDEUZGNW82PM 

Loaded Questions is back!

Loaded Questions has been away for far too long! However, we would like to announce that we are back and better than ever with a new staff, exciting upcoming interviews and more literary news! Please feel free to post our return on your sites/blogs. Your support is greatly appreciated!

What's on the horizon?

Our third interview with the talented and hilarious Mary Roach author of previous best-sellers Stiff: The Curious Case of Human Cadavers, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

The interview comes on the heels of the release of Roach's fourth novel, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. The book's product description reads: Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

I received my copy yesterday and am giddy at the prospect of tearing into it this evening. From the few glimpses I have taken so far I can say without hesitation that Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void represents Roach at her very best. Stay tuned for the interview. In the meantime you can read our first interview with Roach and the second for the release of Bonk. 

We've also lined up an interview with David Nicholls author of the acclaimed novel One Day. The UK's The Guardian wrote that with his latest work Nicholls "has drawn on all his comic and literary gifts to produce a novel that is not only roaringly funny but also memorable, moving and, in its own unassuming, unpretentious way, rather profound." The book garnered author, whose previous books include Starter for Ten: A Novel, A Question of Attraction : A Novel and The Understudy: A Novel, rave reviews from The New York Times to Entertainment Weekly. I spoke to Nicholls recently, he's currently on the set of the movie adaptation of One Day staring Anne Hathaway. We are very much looking forward to sharing this interview with you.

Are you enamored by books? Have an interest in conducting author interviews or writing book reviews? Loaded Questions has already added four new members to its staff but we are still looking for individuals who have an interest in the above activities. Joining our staff is a great way to have contact with your favorite authors and to get your hands on early book releases for you to write about and read. Contact us with you information and interests if you think you'd fit the bill.

Pillars of the Earth Television Series Starts Filming

I will have to apologize for the informality of this post but I have some very exciting news to share! According to the web page of acclaimed author Ken Follett his best-selling novel Pillars of the Earth is currently being filmed in Hungary and Austria as part of an eight-hour limited series! This may not be new news to some of you but it is to me so you'll have to bear with me. The news was even sweeter when I read that Ian McShane (Deadwood and the somewhat enjoyable but quickly cancelled Kings on NBC) will play the dastardly Waleran Bygod.

Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, who has helmed episodes of “Heroes” and “Saving Grace,” and served as Steven Spielberg’s first assistant director on “Saving Private Ryan” and “Schindler’s List,” is directing the series from a script by John Pielmeier (”Hitler: The Rise of Evil”), who also stars in the production.

As some of you may remember, I conducted an interview with author Ken Follett a few years ago before the release of World Without End, the sequel of sorts to Pillars of the Earth. We talked about Pillars of the Earth, fact that it had just been selected as an Oprah Book Club pick and the success that the novel continued to have over twenty years after its release. Click here to read my entire interview with best-selling author Ken Follett.

The cast, according to IMDB.com, is as follows:

Ian McShane as Waleran Bygod

Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder

Matthew Macfadyen as Prior Philip

Donald Sutherland as Earl Bartholomew

Eddie Redmayne as Jack Jackson

Hayley Atwell as Aliena

Natalia Wörner as Ellen

Robert Bathurst as Percy Hamleigh

Liam Garrigan as Alfred

David Oakes as William Hamleigh

Tony Curran as King Stephen of England

Sarah Parish as Regan Hamleigh

Skye Bennett as Martha

Götz Otto as Walter

Anatole Taubman as Remigius

Jody Halse as Johnny Eightpence

Kate Dickie as Agnes

Sidney Johnston as Little Brother Jonathan

David Bark-Jones as Francis

Sam Claflin as Richard

The series has yet to be picked up in the UK or the US but I have a feeling that we'll have news soon enough about how and where it will air.

So -- what do you think? Are you as excited as I am at the prospect of an eight-hour Pillars of the Earth series? Do you think the casting has been done well? (If not please do offer your own suggestions...) Do comment!

If you'd like a refresher on some of the characters here is a link to a handy family tree of the key characters in Pillars of the Earth from Follett's site.

Upcoming Movies Based on Books -- Fall Edition, Part Two

Welcome to the second of three installments featuring movies released in the next few months that are based on literary counterparts. As mentioned previously, this fall has a huge number of movies based on books, making for a reader's delight or nightmare in which books from ever genre have been remade on the silver screen. The first installment included a historical fiction, a Nicholas Spark's love story, a foreign military drama, and a sci-fi thriller that even I am looking forward to.

Part two is not to be outdone, featuring a teenage love story, a comedy with a less than savory character, a thriller and a movie and an unconventional romance.

By Toby Young
Published July, 2002 by Da Capo Press

The appeal of journalist Young's memoir is his willingness to skewer himself as savagely as he does his acquaintances and colleagues. The self-portrait is rarely flattering and sometimes repellent, but carries a startling ring of truth. Young targets Manhattan's superficial social scene and gives a slashing insider's view of Vanity Fair and its parent company, Cond‚ Nast. Consumed with the desire to be "somebody," Young is hired by editor Graydon Carter and unwittingly offends everyone he seeks to impress. He learns that journalists must have "a plausible manner, rat-like cunning and a little literary ability," and he encounters a caste system so rigid that if an important editor trips and falls, etiquette dictates to leave her on the floor and walk on, rather than offer assistance or directly address her. Young's description of his efforts to crash Oscar parties is an appallingly accurate picture of wannabes whose identity depends on the celebrities they cultivate. He's amusingly perceptive in his analysis of women whose motive for marrying prominent men is to impress other women; this jealousy is brilliantly summed up by Gore Vidal's comment, "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little." British-born Young, who has also been fired from the Times of London and the Guardian, paints Carter as a fascinatingly complex individual, capable of devastating employees or helping them face dire health problems. He also includes intriguing profiles of power couple Tina Brown and Harry Evans, and Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell. What keeps readers on Young's side is his courage to keep fighting, even when confronted by publicist Peggy Siegal's withering line, "I have no respect for writers. They never make money. They're like poor people looking in the windows."

The Movie:

Release Date: October 3rd, 2008
Starring: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox
Director: Robert B. Weide


By Rachel Cohn, David Levithan
Published May, 2006 by Knopf Books

What happens when two witty, wise, but vulnerable teens meet by accident at a chaotic punk rock club? They fall in love, of course. While both are dealing with the fallout of failed relationships and the infinite hurt that accompanies them, they are questioning everything about themselves, their friends, and their future paths. The passion and intelligence of these characters, along with the authors' intimate knowledge of and complete respect for their audience, make this novel unique. Told in alternating chapters over the course of a single night, the narratives create a fully fleshed-out picture of both teens, informed by their love of music, their devotion to their friends, and their clear-eyed view of the world. These kids don't drink or do drugs and it's solely their obsession with music that takes them to these clubs. One of Norah's relatives calls her a potty mouth, and that's no exaggeration. Throughout the book, the expletives fly fast and furious, but they are more about personal expression and in-your-face attitude than about strong emotions. Yet, there is also considerable depth and sensitivity. Norah explains the Jewish concept of tikkun olam the responsibility to heal a fractured world and Nick comes up with an original spin on it. There are many heart-stopping, insightful moments in this supremely satisfying story.

The Movie:

Release Date: October 3rd, 2008
Starring: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings
Director: Peter Stollett


By Art Linson
Published May, 2002 by Bloomsbury USA

In this latest addition to the spate of Hollywood tell-alls, the producer of The Untouchables and Fight Club details the planning, handholding and power games involved in making movies. Each film brings its own problems, which Linson recounts in sardonic discussions of his own less-than-boffo features, including Pushing Tin and Great Expectations (the 1998 remake). His account of The Edge is particularly remarkable, as it demonstrates the difficulties of putting together a deal (De Niro had a problem with fighting a fake bear), placating the stars (Alec Baldwin didn't want to shave his beard) and finding a title (The Bear and the Brain was a contender, as was the screenwriter's choice, Bookworm). Linson's insights into why some movies fail are revealing: no one wants to see John Cusack naked (which explains Pushing Tin), for one, and you don't stand a chance if an earlier, bigger release (Titanic) uses the same erotic scene as your movie (Great Expectations). To hear Linson tell it, it's a jungle out there, withloads of fussy, naive, brazen and unlucky monkeys swinging from the trees. He reels out one conversation after another, unearthing the bar banter, telephone exchanges and studio tˆte-…-tˆtes that reveal just how much quibbling goes on behind the scenes. Although Linson's book lacks the polish of William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade or the all-around savvy of Peter Bart and Peter Guber's Shoot Out, it provides a decent bird's-eye view on what a producer actually does and the pressures it involves.

The Movie

Released Date: October 3rd, 2008
Starring: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Kristen Stewart, Robin Wright Penn
Director: Barry Levinson



By David Ignatius
Published April, 2007 by W.W. Norton

Displaying his trademark expertise and writing skill, Washington Post columnist Ignatius (Agents of Innocence) has crafted one of the best post-9/11 spy thrillers yet. Subtly framing a highly elaborate plot, Ignatius tells the story of idealistic CIA agent Roger Ferris, newly stationed in Jordan after being wounded in Iraq. After a failed initiative to flush out a terrorist mastermind known as Suleiman, Ferris, who's dedicated to forestalling further al-Qaeda attacks, develops an intricate scheme modeled after a British plan used successfully against the Nazis. Ferris's plot to turn the terrorists against each other by sowing seeds of suspicion that their leaders are collaborating with the Americans puts his personal life in turmoil and threatens his professional relationship with the head of Jordanian intelligence. Few readers will anticipate the jaw-dropping conclusion

The Movie:

Release Date: October 10th, 2008
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Golshifteh Farahani, Carice van Houten
Director: Ridley Scott






By Michael Downing
Published November, 1999 by Counterpoint

Two gay men, one a New Age chiropractor, the other an editor at an ultra-hip Italian art magazine, live happily together in Cambridge, not too far from Harvard. Sam, the chiropractor, learns that his brother's ex-girlfriend has suddenly died and named Sam legal guardian of her 11-year-old son, Scot. What follows is a wry look at how Sam and Ed adjust to surrogate parenthood, which they had politely, drunkenly and hypothetically agreed to years before. When Scot arrives at their home, these two generous, good-hearted men discover that they have a prepubescent Quentin Crisp on their hands. Scot's flamboyant, androgynous flair makes for some school yard and neighborhood crises, but the boy's innate sweetness and open-mindedness endear him to several youngsters and most adults. The action centers around the adjustments everyone is forced to make during the first semester of Scot's fifth grade at Parker Elementary School, where Scot learns that he must stop wearing pantyhose, eyeliner and perfume. Narrated by Ed, both the action and the asides are loaded with wit and emotion. By the time Sam's brother, Billy, unexpectedly returns from South America, readers know that Scot, Sam and Ed are a real family, and that the two men, patiently immersed in the joys and pains of parenting, are the boy's heroes. The prose in Downing's (Perfect Agreement) fourth novel is melodious and lucid. This heartwarming tale nobly defines and describes a potent, realistic new configuration of contemporary American family values.

The Movie:

Release Date: October 10th, 2008 Starring: Thomas Cavanagh, Ben Shenkman Director: Laurie Lynd