Capitalizing on President Obama’s confrontation with General Stanley McChrystal, Simon & Schuster is releasing a short ebook by David McCullough called TRUMAN FIRES MACARTHUR. It’s an excerpt from his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman. The 35-page title lists for $1.99 and is supposed to be available from major ebooksellers by some time later today. Yesterday afternoon GetGlue launched a Foursquare-inspired pop culture iOS app that encourages users to “check in” to favorite TV shows, music, movies and yes, books, and see what friends are enjoying in real-time. Publishing partners providing “exclusive stickers” as “rewards” include Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, […]
Film/TV
The Next Round of Twilight Fever
Twilight fans have been camping out for days to secure good viewing spots at the scene of tonight’s premiere of The Twilight Sage: Eclipse in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter says that “not since Star Wars has fandom been, well, so fanatical about a single movie” and they also claim “the fervor of the fans is already being compared to the frenzy that surrounded the Beatles when they hit America in the 60s.” The last Twilight movie recorded a $143 million three-day opening, but it was released in November. HR expects the new movie to do better, and also looks […]
Random House to Start Shooting Adaptation of Just-Released Novel
Random House Films and Focus Features will start shooting next month on a film version of David Nicholls’ novel ONE DAY, released today in the US in trade paperback by Vintage. Nicholls adapted the book for film, and Focus plans on a theatrical release in the third quarter of 2011. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess are starring, with Nina Jacobson producing.
People and More
Kelly Bowen will join Algonquin as senior publicist on February 24. She has bee a publicist at Simon and Schuster. YA author and agent Mandy Hubbard has joined the D4EO Literary Agency where she will concentrate on YA and middle-grade fiction. on. Simon & Schuster has relaunched their trade web site, www.simonandschuster.biz. It includes a blog for booksellers from their marketing staff and tools for authors to enter customized information about themselves and blog posts that appear on their consumer web site. It also provides handy access to company’s own digital catalog–where we spotted former Bear Stearns ceo Ace Greenberg’s […]
Lovely Bones Will Aim At Teens; Film Hopes for The Help and Stieg Larsson
Retailers of movie tie-in editions of The Lovely Bones should be on alert. In test screenings, Paramount has found that “the film’s most promising target audience is teen and college-aged girls,” even as “adults so far appear to be lukewarm on the picture…. Most people involved in the film originally thought it would primarily appeal to older moviegoers.” The studio’s co-president of marketing Megan Colligan confirms, “While the initial plan was that the primary target audience was over 25, we discovered that the teen and college-aged audience is critical to the success of this movie.”LAT In other Hollywood reports, Chris […]
Random House Films Gets Stephen Frears to Adapt Beth Raymer Memoir
An agent was asking us just the other day whether Random House Films was still alive since the unit has released only one movie–Reservation Road–since its founding four years ago. But Variety reports that the joint venture with Focus Features has hired director Stephen Frears for a planned film version of Beth Raymer’s forthcoming gambling memoir LAY THE FAVORITE, TAKE THE DOG. D.V. DeVincentis, who worked with Frears on the High Fidelity movie, is adapting, and they are hoping to go into production next June. RH Films optioned the Raymer book in 2007.Variety