Posts Tagged ‘Books’
Posted by bob in News on August 21st, 2008
Given the many editions of Stephen King books through the years, it was high time the artwork was showcased in a collection. Centipede Press is taking care of that very thing with a book now in the works.
The small press publisher has quietly made a name for itself with their reprintings of classic horror, crime, and science fiction works in addition to art books. Contributors to the untitled King book include Michael Whelan, Bernie Wrightson, J.K. Potter, Don Brautigam, Stephen Gervais, Ned Dameron and Don Maitz.
Jerad Walters told Fangoria, “We’re hoping that [King] will agree to an introduction.”
Posted by bob in Films, News on August 18th, 2008
Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, perhaps best known for their work on the screenplay for Ed Wood, look to be the team Sony wants to adapt R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps for a big screen series.
Stine’s 50 titles in his series set sales records for Scholastic back in the 1980s and spawned television and direct-to-video incarnations. After writing other books and series, Stine returned to his best-known franchise with Goosebumps in HorrorLand, a dozen book set.
No director or cast has been set.
Posted by bob in Films, News on August 17th, 2008
It’s been a busy few weeks for Twilight and its related world. No sooner does Warner Bros. move Harry Potter from fall to summer, then Twilight seizes the open weekend now coming just prior to Thanksgiving.
Sara Castillo at FEARnet was able to catch up with some of cast and chatted about how each of them tapped into their respective inner vampires. FM now recaps on the highlights of each interview. (more…)
Posted by bob in News on August 13th, 2008
We’re always interested to hear when someone else dips their toes into the horror field. Our friend, Victoria Blake, formerly of DH Books, sent us news of her newest venture, Underland Press.
“I started Underland with a vision of bringing the world’s best odd, scary, and unsettling fiction to life and to light,” Blake said in a release. “I wanted to make a publishing company that had as much presence online as it did in print. Both of those things have happened. Underland is now distributed by PGW, one of the industry’s heavy-hitters, which means our books will be available everywhere books are sold. The website has been getting a substantial amount of online attention for our wovel, or web novel, where readers vote on the plot choices in real time. People are taking notice. (more…)
Posted by bob in News on August 12th, 2008
John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick is boiling up a new incarnation, this time as an hour-long series for ABC. The pilot is being written by Maggie Friedman (Dawson’s Creek) and is expected for mid-season of fall 2009 airing. No cast has been announced as yet. Three women bond over witchcraft to replace the men in their lives but manage to conjure up a man more devilish than any of their former partners.
The novel has previously been a feature film, released in 1987 and starred Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. It did very well despite criticism of Nicholson being even more over the top than usual. (more…)
Posted by bob in News on August 7th, 2008
With all the hoopla over last Saturday’s release of Stephenie Meyer’s concluding novel in the Twilight quartet, Main Street’s Amanda Beals took a look at the best selling series for tweens and teens. Not surprisingly, most of them are within the genre including:
The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy) – Jonathan Stroud, Nathaniel, a 12 year old magician conjures a 14th level dijini (much like a genie), Bartimaeus. This unlikely duo come into possession of the priceless amulet of Samarkand and chaos ensues. Nathaniel and Bartimaeus have taken more than the spirit world by storm; their first movie is set for 2009.
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis, have sold 100 million copies and been in continuous print since 1955. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien belonged to a writer’s peer group, the Inklings, and it is believed that Tolkien offered input on the chronicles. The third film in the series starts shooting next year. (more…)
Posted by bob in News on August 5th, 2008
In case you missed the hubbub, Stephenie Meyer’s final chapter in her Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn, mustered the same sort of buzz as did the final Harry Potter book. Hachette Book Group USA reported an all time high for one-day sales with release of Breaking Dawn. The book was released at 12:01 a.m. with great fanfare and events at bookstores across the country. By the end of Saturday it had sold some 1.3 million copies of the tome. While the first day sales for Breaking Dawn were significant, last year’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows still had the biggest 24-hour sales with 8.3 million books sailing off shelves.
Posted by bob in Films, News on August 1st, 2008
ShockTillYouDrop.com broke the news that Ann Rice very much wants Pandora, the first in her New Tales of the Vampire series to be made into a feature film..
The 1998 novel is described on the author’s website this way: “Fledgling vampire David Talbot has set out to become a chronicler of his fellow Undead. The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded cafe, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.
“Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.”
Posted by bob in Films, News on August 1st, 2008
William Gibson set the literary world on its ear with his 1984 novel, Neuromancer. Now hailed as the first cypberpunk novel, Hollywood seems to have finally caught up with the trend and the long-gestating film version seems finally to be gaining some steam. A teaser poster was posted over at Quiet Earth.
Gibson’s novel initially won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards upon its release and more recently was named to Time Magazine’s top 100 best English-language books since the magazine was founded in 1923. (more…)
Posted by bob in Films, News on August 1st, 2008
Former heartthrob Colin Firth (Mama Mia) will be joining Ben Barnes in Dorian Gray, the latest adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic horror tale. Directed by Oliver Parker, the movie features Barnes as Gray with Firth playing Lord Henry Wotton, the aristocrat who corrupts Gray. Shooting has begun this week but no release date has been announced. The producers are promising a terrifying horror production, not Masterpiece Theater.
Firth just wrapped that other supernatural perennial, Robert Zemeckis’ motion-capture A Christmas Carol which also stars Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman.
