Brussels’ Herge Studios caused a bit of confusion yesterday in announcing that Peter Jackson would direct the first film in a planned Tintin trilogy for Dreamworks. A representative for Steven Spielberg says that he still intends to direct the film, and a representative for Jackson agrees. Jackson will be a producer on the first film film and intends to direct the second one; first he has to complete Lovely Bones (in post-production) and write scripts for the two Hobbit movies. The first Tintin is based on two books, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, with a screenplay […]
Film/TV
Faulks Bond Novel Won't Be on Screens Anytime Soon
Eon Productions, the UK-based company behind the 22 James Bond movies, has passed on adapting Sebastian Faulks’ new Bond novel Devil May Care for film. “We love the book, but because it is set in the 1960s, we haven’t considered making it in the near future,” said Eon heads Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. But, as Variety reports, Eon’s move doesn’t suddenly leave one of the film world’s most profitable characters available to Hollywood’s franchise-seekers because its parent company Danjaq has controlled the copyrights and trademarks to the franchise for films since the 1950s, locking out anyone else from […]
'Twilight' Movie Pushed Up to November 21
With the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince pushed back from a Thanksgiving release to July 2009, a new release date opened up for the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, which will be pushed up to November 21.Newsday
Fox's "Watchmen" Lawsuit Carries On
A judge has denied a Warner Bros. motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox’s lawsuit over Warners’ right to make a film based on the graphic novel “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The ruling keeps alive the possibility Fox may share in the profits for the film, slated for release in March 2009, though the studio really wants the project to be cancelled outright. “When you have copyright infringement, there are some damages you never recover,” a source close to the litigation told Variety. At the heart of Fox’s suit, filed in February, is the contention that it never […]
Gossip Girl DVD Features Audiobook Tie-in
Even though the success of the TV version of Gossip Girl has, more or less, given the backlist of Cecily von Ziegesar’s series a healthy sales uptick, the same cannot be said for the audiobooks, with “consistently moribund” sales of less than 1,000 yearly according to BookScan. “The teen and the late-teen market has been a really tough market for us,” said Anthony Goff, publisher of Hachette Audio and Digital Media. So Hachette has teamed up with Warner Video and those who buy the first season of the show on DVD will also get the audiobook of book one, narrated […]
No Potter Film Tie-in This Year
Warner Bros. has decided not to release their film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this November, debuting it on July 17, 2009 instead. Warner president Alan Horn says the film would have been ready as scheduled but they want to take advantage of the “relative dearth” of big films next summer (as a result of the production lag from the writers strike). “It feels like we have an opportunity in the summer,” Horn said. As the LAT notes, “the shift in schedule is already roiling Potter fans, who are among the most intense devotees in contemporary pop […]