Fourth and Final ‘Twilight’ book release date

The fourth and final book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series has been announced.  The title is Breaking Dawn and the official release date is Saturday, August 2, at 12:01 am, which means there will probably be midnight release parties at bookstores across the nation. 

The movie based on the first book, Twilight, is going to be released in December of this year.  It stars Kristen Stewart (Jodie Foster’s kid from “Panic Room”) and Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory from ”Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) as Bella and Edward. 

If the movie does well, no doubt we can expect to see the rest of the books turned into films. 

AMC showing Oscar nominees based on books

The Saturday before the Oscars, February 23rd, AMC Theatres is selling an all-day ticket to showings of all five Best Picture nominated movies.  Three of the five movies are based on or inspired by novels:

“Atonement” - Atonement by Ian McEwan

“There Will Be Blood” - Oil! by Upton Sinclair

“No Country for Old Men” - No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Are you planning on attending the AMC event, or have you already seen the films?  How do you think the novels compare to the movies?  

A toast

To the Professor!

Sneak peak of ‘Coraline’

Neil Gaiman posted a sneak peak of ‘Coraline,’ the new movie based on his book.  It’s directed by Henry Selick, the same stop-animation director who did ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ and ‘James and the Giant Peach,’ so my guess is it’s going to be great.   

The teaser poster looks fantastic, both creepy and sweet:

Tim Burton to adapt Alice in Wonderland

SciFi Wire reports that Tim Burton is going to direct a film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, the classic children’s book by Lewis Carroll.  He feels that previous film versions have ‘never quite nailed it.’  Fans are already wondering which roles Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter will win; the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts would be the obvious choices, but perhaps there are more interesting characters in the books. 

 There seem to be several adaptations of Alice in the planning stages right now (including one from Marilyn Manson), so we’ll definitely have to add the original inspiring book to our to-read pile. 

‘The Secret Life of Bees’ casting news

The Secret Life of Bees, a big hit with the women readers in my library, has been cast.  The stars are Dakota Fanning as Lily Owen, Jennifer Hudson as Rosaleen, and Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, and Sophie Okonedo as the ‘Calendar’ sisters August, June, and May.  The movie is due out in 2008.  Have you read it?  What do you think of the casting choices? 

Eddie Izzard to voice Reepicheep

Ain’t It Cool News reports that Eddie Izzard has been chosen to voice Reepicheep in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.’  I love Eddie Izzard but I’m having a hard time imagining him doing the voice of dear Reep.  It’s been awhile since I’ve read the novel (though we plan on rereading here it just before the movie comes out) so my memory may not be reliable, but I thought Reep had a high-pitched voice.  I wonder if Eddie will attempt that. 

Last night I had the misfortune of catching ‘My Super Ex-Girlfriend’ on cable (horrible, misogynistic, crappy movie), in which he plays an American, and just like in FX’s television series ‘The Riches’, his American accents all sound like his James Mason impression from his stand-up.  He can do two impressions, James Mason and Sean Connery, and any American accent ends up just sounding like James Mason.  But maybe it’s just accents that are his weakness, and this will be unrelated to making his voice high-pitched for Reepicheep.  If he doesn’t change his voice at all, it may be a bit disconcerting to hear that sexy British accented voice coming from a giant walking mouse.

Atonement

For December/January we’ll start off the book club reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.  The film based on the book was just recently released, and is already racking up praise and award nominations, as the book did.  Time magazine named it one of their All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels and it was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction, which McEwan previously won for his novel Amsterdam.

We expect to have message boards in the future but for now discussion can be held in the comments.

For more titles we plan on reading, see the ‘coming soon’ section in the sidebar.  If you have any titles to suggest, feel free to leave a comment.   

Peter Jackson to produce ‘The Hobbit’

The biggest news today of course is that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema appear to have settled their differences, as they announced that Peter Jackson will produce ‘The Hobbit’ as two films.  This sounds like good news to the fans of the book, as it means it’s less likely parts of the story will be cut out of the film.  PJ and Fran Walsh are on board as just executive producers at this point, so it’s not clear who will end up directing.  Rumor is that Sam Raimi of ‘Spider-Man’ might step in to direct. 

Via Variety, ‘Hobbit’ back on track as twin bill

Welcome

Welcome to Movies By The Book!  This new online community is part book club, part movie club.  We’re going to read and discuss books that are/will be turned into movies, and discuss the movies themselves.  We’ll also post and discuss news such as books that have recently had movie options purchased, casting choices, etc.  We just can’t separate the book-loving and movie-loving parts of ourselves, so we figured why not combine the two!  We hope you’ll join us.