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 […]
News
Wikipedia Dropped from Agent's Suit
In Barbara Bauer’s lawsuit alleging defamation and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage against 22 plaintiffs, a judge has dismissed the Wikimedia Foundation from the case, citing the Communications Decency Act.Ars Technica
Steinbeck Copyright Battle Now in Penguin's Favor
The long-running battle over control of John Steinbeck’s estate, and specifically the copyrights to early works such as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, has shifted once again. Reversing a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen that awarded the copyrights to Steinbeck’s son Thomas and granddaughter Blake Smyle, the 2nd Circuit of the Federal Court of Appeals ruled that Penguin, along with the estate of Steinbeck’s third wife Elaine, hold the rights on the grounds that a 1938 notice purporting to terminate publication rights was superceded by a 1994 agreement. “Because the termination right provided […]
S&S Children's Starts Film Unit
Simon & Schuster’s Children’s division has partnered with Gotham Group, a Los Angeles-based management firm, to develop book properties for film, starting with Alienated, director David O. Russell’s upcoming middle-grade book series. “It’s about having more control in the process,” Rick Richter, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, told the New York Times. The Times offers a painstakingly clueless account of how this might aid S&S, with no sense of other film partnerships struck by other big six houses recently.NYT
B&N Won't Bid for Borders
It’s kind of funny, actually: Now the WSJ reports what we’ve been saying all along: that Barnes & Noble is not expected to bid for Borders, citing in part “the tight lending markets that likely would make it difficult to arrange bank financing” and high-lease prices on some of Borders’ stores. It was the Journal touting BN’s head fake in May that “it had assembled a team of senior executives and advisers to study the possibility of acquiring Borders” that gave Borders stock a pop even as the stronger Barnes & Noble has declined during the summer sell-off. (Both stocks […]
Esquire Editor L. Rust Hills Dies
Esquire’s longtime fiction editor, working three separate stints during the 1950s through the 1990s and publisher of contemporary work by the likes of John Cheever, Norman Mailer, William Styron, and Raymond Carter, died Tuesday at his home in Belfast, ME. He was 83. NYT obit