Read the Book - then see the film

Calling all film buffs! Do you want to read a book before you see the film rather than the other way around? If so, we’ve gathered together most of the movies coming up that are based on books so that you can get in first.

Each title is linked to our catalogue and to the Internet Movie Database so that you can see what’s happening with the upcoming movie.

If you are interested in movies based on children’s and young adults books try our Kids Read the Book list.
For books based on movies and T.V. that have already come out see Books into Film and TV.

Recent Additions

Angels and Demons: The film version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci code was, like the book, more of a phenomenon than a film and director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks are up for this one, based on Brown’s 2000 novel, and it is likely to make enough money to refloat the American economy. It’s more paranoia thriller material again with a secret society out to destroy the Vatican with an antimatter bomb. The novel has been so successful that there are Angels & Demons tours in Rome so that you can follow The Path of Illumination. This time round Hanks is partnered by Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer and there’s a big supporting cast including Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgard.
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Creation: The 2001 book Annie’s box by Randal Keynes is coming to the screen with real life married couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly playing Charles and Emma Darwin. Randal Keynes is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin and the film version will concentrate on the story behind Darwin’s revolutionary theory and how Darwin’s love for his deeply religious wife conflicted with his own growing beliefs. Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberpatch, Bill Paterson, Jeremy Northam and Jim Carter are also in the cast and Jon Amiel directs.
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Dear John: Like Dan Brown, romantic novelist Nicholas Sparks can do no wrong saleswise and most of his sentimental tearjerkers have ended up on the screen. This one, an adaptation of his 2006 bestseller, follows hot on the heels of the recent adaptation of Nights in Rodanthe. This one is about a soldier home on leave who meets a quiet young woman working for Habitat for Humanity. Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried and Scott Porter are the stars and the director is Lasse Hallstrom who has come down a bit from his previous films like My life as a dog and What’s eating Gilbert Grape.
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Defiance: This adaptation of the 1993 book, Defiance: the Bielski partisans by Nechama Tec is directed by Edward Zwick who has made previous big war movies such as Glory. The book is about a group of Jews in 1940s Belorusssia, known as the Bielksi Partisans, who mounted an armed rescue of Jewish Europeans, saving hundreds from the Holocaust. This is their story, as gathered through interviews by Holocaust survivor Tec. Daniel Craig is in the lead with Liev Schrieber, Jamie Bell, George MacKay, Alexa Davalos and Allan Corduner also in the cast.
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Desert flower: The 1998 book by Waris Dirie was a huge bestseller on publication and has taken this long to reach the screen. New York model Liya Kebede plays Dirie whose extraordinary book related how this Somalian woman was circumcised at 5, sold into marriage at 13 but eventually became a famous model and a passionate advocate for stopping female circumcision. American director Sherry Horman, who has made most of her films in Germany, has a strong cast for this British/German co-production, including Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal, Craig Parkinson and Sally Hawkins (the lead in the Mike Leigh film Happy go lucky).
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Dolan’s Cadillac: Dolan’s Cadillac is a thriller about a man (Wes Bentley) who is distraught when his school teacher wife (Emmanuelle Vaugier) is murdered. She has seen a mobster, Jimmy Dolan (Christian Slater), kill someone in the desert, and before she can testify against him, she is murdered. The widower then plans to get revenge on the Las Vegas mobster and his silver Caddy. This one has been around for some time (it’s an adaptation of a short story in the 1993 collection Nightmares and dreamscapes) and the villainous mobster was a part that had been announced at various points for Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Bacon and Dennis Hopper. Canadian director Jeff Beesley, whose previous work is mostly television, directs.
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Dorian Gray: The classic Oscar Wilde novel The picture of Dorian Gray, originally published in 1890, has been on the screen many times in period and modern adaptations and in every format from big Hollywood movies to porn films. This one is described as a modern take on the classic work (although set in the period) and is directed by Oliver Parker who did two previous Wilde works on film, The importance of being Earnest and An ideal husband (both had mixed reviews). Here the title character who maintains his looks while his portrait moulders away in the attic is played by Ben Barnes and his mentor, Lord Henry Wotton, by Colin Firth with a big supporting cast led by Emilia Fox, Rebecca Hall, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Ben Chaplin, Fiona Shaw and Douglas Henshall.
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Foundation: The first book of Isaac Asimov's classic series was published in 1951. The trilogy has never been filmed despite winning a one off Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Now New Line are looking to film it with an eye to producing a Lord of the Rings type trilogy.
Read the book ~ The film at The Internet Movie database
From Time to time: Julian Fellowes, novelist and scriptwriter (of Gosford Park) is directing and adapting this new version of the 1958 children’s classic, The children of Green Knowe, by Lucy M. Boston. The story follows a boy on his journey through time to discover his family’s dramatic and mysterious past. The cast includes Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Pauline Collins, Timothy Spall, Harriet Walter and Alex Etel.
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The Kid: Kevin Lewis grew up on a council estate in South London and he was beaten and starved by his violent mother and his alcoholic father. The book, probably one of the earlier examples of that disturbing genre, the misery memoir, details his dreadful early life and his eventual triumph with the help of a supportive schoolteacher. It is hard to imagine the beautiful Natascha McElhone playing a mother on a council estate but she is the choice for the role. Rupert Friend is playing Lewis as an adult and Nicholas Hoult plays him as a child with Ioan Gruffudd as the teacher. Nick Moran directs.
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Neuromancer: A movie of William Gibson's 1984 brilliant cyber-punk novel which won the 1985 Hugo Award is due for release in 2009.
Read the book ~ The film at The Internet Movie database
Under the mountain: In this adaptation of Maurice Gee’s 1979 novel, Sam Neill heads the cast with talented newcomers Sophie McBride and Tom Cameron playing teenage twins who battle alien forces hidden beneath the volcanoes. Oliver Driver plays the dark and frightening Mr Wilberforce and filming was done in Auckland and on Rangitoto Island. Jonathan King is directing and c-scripting (with Jonathan Grainger) and Weta Workshop is involved with the special effects. There is an original score to the movie by Victoria Kelly, performed by the NZSO.
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…And… don’t forget these…

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - R - S - T - V - W- Z

Adam resurrected: Yoram Kaniuk’s novel, first published 1969 and first translated 1971, is set in the aftermath of World War II and is about Adam, a former circus clown who was spared from death in the concentration camp and arrives in Israel in 1958 where he becomes the ringleader of a group of holocaust survivors. The film version is directed by American Paul Schrader and the title character is played by Jeff Goldblum. Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi, Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer and top German actors Moritz Bleibtreu, Juliane Kohler and Veronica Ferres also star.
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The alchemist: Portugal’s biggest selling novelist penned this work some years back (first translated into English 1993) and it’s had great appeal to those who like stories about people following their dreams. The novel, set in Spain at the time of the Inquisition, deals with a boy whose dreams of a treasure take him on a journey from his home in Spain to Egypt. Laurence Fishburne directs as well as playing the lead and the cast includes Jeremy Irons and Madonna.
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B

Bag of bones: A novelist (Billy Crudup) gets writer’s block after the death of his wife and moves out to his holiday home. A chance encounter when he rescues a small girl from being run over leads him into a relationship with the child’s mother (Jennifer Garner) a widow whose psychopathic father-in-law will do anything to get custody of the child. Mix in some strange dreams and you have typical Stephen King material and indeed this is an adaptation of his 1998 bestseller.
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Beast of Bataan: Lawrence Taylor’s 1981 book A trial of generals (now out of print) is the source for the latest film from Australian director Fred Schepisi. It’s the story of the trial of the Japanese general executed for his part in the death of thousands of American and Filipino P.O.W.s during the notorious Bataan Death March in 1942. Japanese actor Koji Yakusho plays the general and Hayden Christensen plays the lawyer who defends him. William Hurt and Willem Dafoe also star.
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Black Water Transit: Carsten Stroud’s 2001 novel is a tough dark thriller follows the divergent agendas of crooks, cops and lawyers as they clash over a shipment of illegal firearms, mafia ties and a double homicide. The film is the feature debut of music video director Samuel Bayer and it is a vehicle for action star Vin Diesel. Filmed in Chicago, it co-stars James Franco, Kevin Bacon and Sophie Okonedo.
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Blindness: Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (last film, The constant gardener) is directing an adaptation of the classic novel by Portuguese author Jose Saramago (first published in 1995; first translated, 1997). It’s a dark apocalyptic tale about an epidemic of blindness that sweeps through a modern city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown. The cast is headed by Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga and Danny Glover.
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The boy in striped pyjamas: Mark Herman (Brassed off, Purely belter) is directing, on location in Budapest, the film version of John Boyne’s 2006 Young Adult novel about two boys caught up in events beyond their control and comprehension. One of the boys is the son of the commander of a concentration camp and the other is one of the child prisoners. The novel is something of a crossover title in that it was written for young people but has had a lot of interest from adults. The boys, Bruno and Shmuel, are played by Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon and adult members of the cast include Vera Farmiga, Rupert Friend, David Thewlis, Sheila Hancock and Jim Norton.
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Brief Interviews With Hideous Men: This is a short story in a 1999 collection of the same name by the highly original American author David Foster Wallace. The film version is directed by John Krasinski who is best known for the American version of The office. In the film Julianne Nicholson plays a woman who decides to cope with a relationship breakdown by interviewing a number of men to find out why men are like they are. The males under the microscope, many of them known from television, include Max Minghella, Timothy Hutton, Ben Shenkman, Lou Taylor Pucci, Josh Charles, Bobby Cannavale and Christopher Meloni.
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C

Cheri: Here’s a new adaptation of the classic novel by Colette which tells the story of the end of a six year affair between an aging retired courtesan, Léa, and a pampered young man, Chéri. This has been filmed a number of times before and is also a staple on stage as it offers a terrific role for the older actress. In this version Michelle Pfeiffer plays the main role and she reunites with director Stephen Frears and playwright/scriptwriter Christopher Hampton with whom she made Dangerous liaisons some years back. This time her dangerous liaison is with Rupert Friend who plays Cheri with Kathy Bates, Anita Pallenberg, Harriet Walter and Felicity Jones supporting.
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Cirque du freak: Darren Shan’s enormously successful series The saga of Darren Shan - started back in 1999 with this novel. Shan is the pseudonym of an Irish author named Darren O’Shaughnessy and the stories have as hero a resourceful boy named Darren Shan who visits a mysterious freak show which leads him into the world of vampires. Paul Weitz, who produced the film of Philip Pullman’s The golden compass, is directing the film version with locations in New Orleans. The main character is played by Chris J. Kelly with a cast that includes Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Josh Hutcherson and Ken Watanabe.
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City of ember: In a future world the people of Earth have moved underground and the city of Ember is dying as its electricity generator is slowly failing. It’s up to two teenagers to save the day in this adaptation of the 2003 children’s novel by Jeanne Duprau. Gil Kenan, who made Monster house, is directing the film in Belfast and the two children are played by Saoirse Ronan (also the lead in The lovely bones) and Harry Treadaway with the adult cast headed by Bill Murray, Martin Landau, Toby Jones, Tim Robbins and Marianne-Jean Baptiste.
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The City Of Your Final Destination: Peter Cameron’s 2002 novel is about an Iranian graduate student in Kansas who wants to write a biography of a distinguished poet. Unfortunately he has failed to get authorisation for the book from the three executors of the poet’s estate, the poet’s brother, wife, and mistress, all of whom live in Uruguay. After he contacts them, he receives a letter refusing authorization. Pushed by his overbearing girlfriend, he journeys to Uruguay to meet the family. With the death of the Merchant part of Merchant-Ivory, it is left to James Ivory to direct and their customary scriptwriter, novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, to adapt the novel. The young biographer is played by Omar Metwally and his girlfriend by German actress Alexandra Maria Lara. Others in the international cast include Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kate Burton and Argentinian actress Norma Aleandro.
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The Colossus: It takes a long time for some books to get to the screen and the 1999 novel Manly pursuits by South African novelist Ann Harries is a case in point. The novel won the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award and concerns the life of Cecil Rhodes, an English imperialist who wanted to subjugate the whole of Africa for the Crown. Harries’s story finds Rhodes on his deathbed in 1899, just months before the beginning of the Boer War, which resulted in English domination of South Africa. Rhodes believes that if he can hear the song of native English birds, his life will be rejuvenated and he will survive to see his imperialist plans through. As a result, he sends for an Oxford ornithologist named Francis Wills, who acts as the story’s narrator. A fictionalised version of some real events, the film stars Ian McKellen as Rhodes, Colin Firth as Wills, Rachel Weisz as a political activist who Wills falls for, and Susan Sarandon. The director is the notable English stage director Sean Mathias.
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Confessions of a shopaholic: The epitome of the chicklit novel, this is the first, originally published in 2000, in the bestselling series by Sophie Kinsella (the film carries the American title of the novel; it was published in the rest of the world as The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic) Isla Fisher plays the title character, a compulsive shopper who’s up to her neck in debut and, ironically, gets a job as a financial advice columnist. Aussie director P.J. Hogan, famous for Muriel’s wedding, is doing this one and the cast also includes Hugh Dancy and Krysten Ritter.
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Coraline: The market for big animated features is inexhaustible, and this adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novel about a little girl who discovers a secret door which leads to another world where she has a different set of parents and a whole new life, is ideal screen material. As usual there are well known voices for the cartoon characters and they include Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Teri Hatcher and Ian McShane with Dakota Fanning doing the voice for the title character.
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D

The damned Utd: David Peace’s excellent 2006 novel is a fictionalised account of Brian Clough’s 44 days in charge of Leeds United Football Club in 1974. It will be interesting to see if a movie about football will do well at the box office since sports movies have not traditionally brought in the crowds. Peter Morgan, who has written most of the recent documentary dramas (The Queen, Longford, Frost/Nixon, etc), has adapted the novel and Michael Sheen, who has done excellent impersonations of Tony Blair, Kenneth Williams, David Frost and others, plays the controversial football manager Clough, with Timothy Spall as his right hand man Peter Taylor, Colm Meaney playing Clough’s bitter rival Don Revie and Jim Broadbent as Derby Chairman Sam Longson.
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The Dark Is Rising: This is an adaptation of the five novel sequence by Susan Cooper - (Over sea, under stone (1965), The dark is rising (1973), Greenwitch (1974), The grey king (1975) and Silver on the tree (1977). The series is an epic fantasy aimed at a young adult readership and about a group of contemporary English children who become involved in a cosmic battle between good and evil, referred to as Light and Dark in the books. The film is directed by David L. Cunningham, who made such disparate television series as The path to 9/11 and Little house on the prairie. The main character, Will, is played by Alexander Ludwig and the old man who mentors him, Lyon, is played by Ian McShane. Others in the cast include Christopher Eccleston, Frances Conroy, Jonathan Jackson, Amelia Warner and Frances Conroy.
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The December Boys: The first post Potter role for Daniel Radcliffe is in this Australian film based on Michael Noonan’s 1960 novel. It’s a book considered a classic in Australia, the tale of a group of close friends who leave the dusty outback orphanage where they’ve grown up for a summer holiday together at the coast, their future is full of possibilities. However, the chance that one of them, just one, might gain a real family to live with calls everything they thought they knew about themselves and each other into question. Radcliffe, Teresa Myers, Lee Cormie and Christian Byers play the principal orphans and there are well known Aussie actors such as Jack Thompson and Kris McQuade.
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Doubt: John Patrick Shanley’s stage play, first produced in 2004, is set against the backdrop of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, telling the story of a strong-minded woman faced with a difficult decision. Should she voice concerns about one of her male colleagues…even if she’s not entirely certain of the truth? Sister Aloysius, the nun with the doubts, is played by Meryl Streep and the priest she suspects of abuse is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Shanley himself has adapted and directed the film and the supporting cast includes Viola Davis, Amy Adams and Joseph Foster.
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Dream Boy: This 1995 novel is the second novel by a leading Southern writer. It’s about a teenage boy in North Carolina who falls in love with the farm boy next door. It’s a disturbing story in that the boy has been sexually abused by his drunken father, abuse his mother turns a blind eye to. The main character is played by Maximillian Roeg (as everyone in the acting profession seems to be related in some way, it is no surprise to find he’s the son of two notables, director Nicolas Roeg and actress Theresa Russell, and his friend by Owen Beckman. The abusive father is played by Thomas Jay Ryan and the mothers of the boys by Diana Scarwid and singer Rickie Lee Jones.
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Dune: Frank Herbert’s vast novel is going to be filmed again, currently due for 2010, and directed by Peter Berg. The most well-known version of Dune was David Lynch’s love it or hate it 1984 production with Kyle Maclachlan as Paul Atreides and also featuring Sting, however there were also two mini-series of Dune and Children of Dune, in 2000 - 2003.
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The dying animal: Philip Roth’s 2001 novella is about a lecturer and cultural critic who finds his life which he describes as being in a state of “emancipated manhood” is knocked sideways by a beautiful woman student with whom he becomes obsessed. Teacher and student are played by Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in a film directed by Isabel Coixet (the Spanish director of the current Secret life of words) and adapted by novelist Nicholas Meyer. Others in the case include Patricia Clarkson, Deborah Harry, Peter Sarsgaard and Dennis Hopper.
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E

Easy virtue: Noel Coward’s 13th play, first produced in 1925, is regarded as a precursor of his much more well known drawing room comedy Private lives. It’s set in the usual setting of the English country house and is about what happens when the prodigal son of the family returns with a glamorous trophy wife in tow. Ben Barnes, from the current Narnia film, and Jessica Biel are the couple and the disapproving parents are played by Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas. It has been filmed at Engelfield House in Berkshire and in Oxfordshire and is directed by Stephan Elliott, the Australian born director of Priscilla, Queen of the desert.
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F


Fugitive Pieces: The 1996 novel by Canadian writer Anne Michaels won the UK-based Orange Prize for Fiction in 1997. It is a highly unusual book that weaves together the stories of two men from different generations whose lives are transformed by the Holocaust. It is told in an elusive and poetic way and wouldn’t be many people’s choice of a novel easy to adapt to the screen. The film, made in Canada with some locations in Greece, is directed by Jeremy Podeswa who has adapted it with the author. The cast is headed by Stephen Dillane, Rade Serbedzija and Rosamund Pike.
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G

The garden of Eden: Mena Suvari, Jack Huston, Caterina Murino and Richard E. Grant star in "The Garden of Eden," an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel (posthumously published in 1986), directed by John Irvin. Set in the Jazz Age, it’s the story of a successful young American novelist, previously an aviator during WWI, who embarks on an extended honeymoon across Europe with his wife (Suvari). But when she brings in a sultry Italian girl (Murino) to spice things up with erotic games, their relationship comes under pressure.
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The green zone: Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s 2006 book Imperial life in the emerald city is a work of non fiction that has been adapted by the author and director Paul Greengrass and changed somewhat to a fictional tale set in Iraq’s zone of the title, the safe zone where U.S. troops, officials, media and diplomats reside. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play CIA officers with Amy Adams as an investigative reporter.
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H

He’s just not that into you: Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s 2004 bestseller is a self-help book that was based on a popular episode of the hit series Sex and the city. It’s aimed at the urban woman who has despaired of finding Mr Right. The female co-author says that the book has been so successful that women who’ve read the book have grabbed their cell phone afterwards and deleted half the numbers! The book serves as the basis for a romantic comedy with an ensemble cast that includes Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Connelly, Ben Affleck, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kris Kristofferson and Kevin Connolly.
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Hippie hippie shake: The sixties were revisited by Richard Neville in his 1995 book Hippie hippie shake: The dreams, the trips, the trials, the love-ins, the screw ups-- : the sixties which is all about his hectic life of sex, drugs and rock and roll in what was once called Swinging London. It also deals with his time at Oz magazine and the resulting obscenity trial. Cillian Murphy is playing Neville and Sienna Miller plays his girlfriend Louise Ferrier who once posed naked on the cover of Oz with her fashion designer friend Jenny Kee. Artist and underground cartoonist Martin Sharp is played by Max Minghella and Emma Booth plays the even more famous Germaine Greer. Greer has already slagged off the whole project in her Guardian blog. The adaptation has been done by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and his wife Beeban Kidron directs.
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Hotel for dogs: Lois Duncan’s 1971 children’s novel is about a couple of feisty orphans who set out to hide dozens of stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. After all this time it is coming to the screen from Dreamworks with Emma Roberts, Jake T. Austin and Troy Gentile among the children with an adult cast headed by Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon and Don Cheadle.
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The Hottest State: Ethan Hawke’s 1996 novel had very mixed reviews but the weight of his name may have given it an easier path to the screen than most first novels. It’s the story of a young actor in New York and his relationship with a struggling singer/songwriter. It’s a relationship that is pretty much doomed from the start. Hawke is directing the film and has done the adaptation as well. The two major characters are played by Mark Webber and Catalina Sandino Moreno, the young South American actress who came to fame in Maria full of grace. Others in the cast include Laura Linney, Michelle Williams, Frank Whaley and Sonia Braga and the music soundtrack will include songs by Willie Nelson and Norah Jones.
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I - J

I, Claudius: Currently with a projected date of 2010, rights to Robert Graves’s 1934 novel were obtained by veteran producer Scott Rudin (The Queen). Reports suggest that Leonardo DiCaprio and screenwriter William Monahan may be involved with the production. The BBC made it into a miniseries, starring Derek Jacobi and John Hurt in 1976, which we hold on video.
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I love you Beth Cooper: The 2007 novel by Larry Doyle, a well known scriptwriter for The Simpsons, is a teenage comedy which some critics said is something of an homage to teen movies from the era of scriptwriter John Hughes and all his Breakfast club type movies. It’s about the school nerd who interrupts his graduation speech to utter the words of the title. Beth Cooper is the school’s leading cheerleader and what happens after this incident makes up the book. Paul Rust plays the lead and certainly looks the nerdish part and the dream girl is played by Hayden Panettiere with Chris Columbus, who has done everything from Stepmom to Mrs Doubtfire and one of the Harry Potter’s directing.
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In the electric mist: A detective tracking a serial killer who preys on young women finds his investigation complicated by a glamorous Hollywood starlet and a ruthless crime kingpin in the celebrated French director Bertrand Tavernier’s adaptation of the 1993 James Lee Burke novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones (as series hero Dave Robicheaux), John Goodman, Peter Saarsgard, Ned Beatty, Mary Steenburgen and Kelly Macdonald.
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Incendiary: A woman who’s been having an illicit affair has her life torn apart when her husband and son are killed in a terrorist attack at a soccer match in the powerful 2005 novel by Chris Cleave. The novel, a first, has been adapted to the screen and directed by Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones’s diary), filmed on location in London and it features Michelle Williams, Ewen McGregor and Matthew McFadyen in the lead roles.
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The informers: Australian director Gregor Jordan is going for the ensemble style movie in the tradition of Crash and Short cuts, taking a number of people and intertwining their stories. As it’s an adaptation of a 1994 collection by Bret Easton Ellis the people are either seedy, tragic or appalling and there’s not much redemption or uplift around. It is set in Los Angeles during a week in 1983 and the large cast includes Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Brandon Routh, Ashley Olsen, Lou Taylor Pucci and Jon Foster.
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Inkheart: German writer Cornelia Funke’s 2003 novel is about a bookbinder who has refused to read books to his young daughter ever since the girl’s mother disappeared some years ago. The appearance of a mysterious stranger changes their lives and father and daughter go on the run from a bunch of dastardly villains. The author actually chose Brendan Fraser to play the leading part and the film, made in Britain with locations in Italy, has a large cast including Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, Sienna Guillory, Jim Broadbent and Eliza Bennett
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Jolene: Dan Ireland, who directed the surprisingly successful adaptation of Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, has chosen an adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s short story Jolene: a life as his next film. The story appears in Doctorow’s 2004 collection, Sweetland stories, and it follows a decade in the life of Jolene, a young woman who goes through a series of disastrous relationships and dead end jobs in her search for a better life. Jolene is played by Newcomer Jessica Chastain and the supporting cast includes Donald Sutherland as an ex-mobster in Las Vegas, Dermot Mulroney, Denise Richards, Theresa Russell, Michael Vartan and English actor Rupert Friend.
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K - L

Killing Pablo: The story of how Colombian gangster, Pablo Escobar, was assassinated and his Medellin cocaine cartel dismantled by US special forces and intelligence, the Colombian military, and a vigilante gang controlled by the Cali cartel. Current cast includes Christian Bale as Major Steve Jacoby and Javier Bardem as Pablo Escobar.
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Killshot: A married couple are in a real estate office when a pair of criminals walk in bent on extortion. The couple see too much for their own good, the local police can’t do much to help them from the villains on their trail, and they are on the run. It’s a typically taut Elmore Leonard tale, published 1989. Leonard is one of the contemporary crime writers who has had most of his work adapted for film and this one has promise as it is directed by English director John Madden with a cast headed by Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Mickey Rourke and Justin Timberlake.
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The last station: Jay Parini’s 2007 novel gives a fictional account of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy during his last year of life that culminates in Tolstoy’s fatal abandonment of the estate where he spent his entire life. The story is told from the various perspectives of several narrators, among them Tolstoy’s wife, daughter, and doctor. The film version has Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as his long suffering wife (originally these roles were to be played by Anthony Hopkins and Meryl Streep). His disciple and close friend, Vladimir Chertkov, is played by Paul Giamatti and his secretary, Bulgakov, by James McAvoy with Anne-Marie Duff as Tolstoy’s daughter Sasha.
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The life before her eyes: Laura Kasischke’s 2002 novel is about a woman living a privileged life as an artist and housewife with a supportive husband and a young daughter. This perfect world starts to fall apart because of what happened twenty years ago when she and her best friend were targets in a Columbine-like school shooting and the best friend died. The film version is directed by Vadim Perlman who previously did the adaptation of the Andre Dubus novel House of sand and fog. Uma Thurman is in the lead with Evan Rachel Wood playing the young version, Eva Amurri as the teenage friend, Sherman Alpert and Brett Cullen.
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The lovely bones: Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel was less a bestseller than a phenomenon and this love-it-or-hate it book was always going to be a challenge for a film adaptation. As everyone knows, Peter Jackson is making the film and he, partner Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, have adapted the novel. The main character, Susie Salmon, who narrates the novel from heaven, is played by Saorsie Ronan. Her mother is played by Rachel Weisz and the father was to have been played by Ryan Gosling who was replaced just before filming began by Mark Wahlberg. Susan Sarandon plays the grandmother, Stanley Tucci is the man who has murdered Susie. Two young New Zealand actresses, Rose McIver (as Susie’s sister) and Carolyn Dando, are also in the cast. The film is being made on location in Pennsylvania and New Zealand.
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M - N

Mao’s last dancer: Cunxin Li’s 2003 book has been an international bestseller. Plucked from poverty, Li Cunxin was brought to Beijing to learn ballet. Later, after defecting from China, he became world renowned as a principal dancer in both the Houston and the Australian Ballets. Jan Sardi, who wrote the script for the David Helfgott film Shine, has adapted the book and Bruce Beresford is directing on location in China and Australia. Chi Cao, principal dancer in the Royal Birmingham Ballet, plays the leading role and others in the cast include Joan Chen, Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Thompson, Amanda Schull, Bruce Greenwood and Penne Hackforth-Jones.
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Marley and me: John Grogan’s 2005 book has been a big bestseller, especially in America, and it is the kind of book that makes some people go “awwh” and others make other noises. It fits into that American tradition of heart warming, lesson learning books like “Tuesdays with Morrie” as it tells the story of Grogan and his wife and the Labrador they had for thirteen years and the lessons they learned. The film version is directed by David Frankel who made The devil wore Prada with Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as John Grogan and wife and Alan Arkin.
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Miracle at Saint Anna: The 2002 novel by James MacBride, author of the bestselling memoir, The colour of water, is based on a true but little known tragedy that happened in a Tuscan village during World War II. The main characters are three African American and one Puerto Rican soldiers who are trapped behind enemy lines and take refuge among a group of villagers. Spike Lee is directing the film version with a big cast including Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, James Gandolfini, John Turturro, D.B. Sweeney and Valentina Cervi.
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The Mist: Frank Darabont, who made two of the best Stephen King adaptations, The green mile and The Shawshank redemption, originally wanted to make a film version of the King short story The mist, which appeared in the 1985 collection, Skeleton crew. Now, about twenty years later, he is bringing this story to the screen. It’s more of a visceral horror yarn than the two previous King adaptations he has done as it concerns a group of small town people who take refuge in a supermarket when a thick mist engulfs the town. Unsurprisingly, the mist is the cover for some nasty evil critters out to get whoever they come across. The cast is headed by Thomas Jane, Andre Braugher, Marcia Gay Harden, Alexa Davalos and Toby Jones.
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My last five girlfriends: Here’s an adaptation (described as “loosely based on”) of Alain de Botton’s 1993 novel Lessons in love. The film has been ages coming to the screen as it has been through a lot of financial backers. It’s a romantic comedy directed by Julian Kemp who comes from British T.V. and Brendan Patricks, also from television, is in the lead with the girlfriends played by Naomie Harris, Cecile Cassel (daughter of the late veteran French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel), Jane March, Edith Bukovics and Kelly Adams with British T.V. personality Johnny Ball and Michael Sheen also in the cast.
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My sister’s keeper: Previously Jodi Picoult’s novels have ended up as television movies which is often the destination of issues based fiction. This one will be a big screen production and it will be interesting to see if it breaks through and attracts the same large audience that read her novels. The story concerns a teenage girl who had been conceived as a genetic match for her sister with cancer. The girl’s decision to fight for the rights of her own body lead to a court case in which her mother has to defend herself. Abigail Breslin plays the girl and Sofia Vassilieva is her sister. Cameron Diaz plays the mother and Alec Baldwin the girl’s lawyer with Jason Patric and Joan Cusack also in the cast.
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The mysteries of Pittsburgh: Set in industrial Pittsburgh in the mid-eighties, this adaptation of Michael Chabon’s 1988 novel, his fiction debut, chronicles the last summer of Art Bechstein’s (Jon Foster) youth. Art meets the witty and handsome Arthur Lecomte, who then introduces Art to the equally stunning Jane (Sienna Miller), her boyfriend, the legendary Cleveland (Peter Sarsgaard), and worldly, exotic and slightly eccentric Phlox (Mena Suvari). The film version has apparently removed the character of Arthur from the mix. In the course of one summer, this group of colourful friends dominate Art’s life as he comes to terms with life, love and his sexuality. It has taken a long time for the novel to come to the screen and his later novel, Wonder boys, beat it by years.
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The new daughter: In this supernatural thriller, Kevin Costner plays a solo father who moves to a farm with his two kids after a divorce. Soon, his daughter (Ivana Baquero) starts behaving ominously and the father begins to suspect a mysterious burial mound in a nearby field may have something to do with it. Spanish director Luis Berejo is making this adaptation of the short story of the same name by John Connolly which is in his 2004 collection Nocturnes.
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The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency: The first of the Alexander McCall Smith novels that also have this series title came out in 1998 and has been on the drawing board for some time. Anthony Minghella has filmed the novel on location in Botswana and has given the plum part of Precious Ramotswe to singer Jill Scott in her film debut. Her secretary, Grace Makutsi, is played by Anika Noni Rose (from Dreamgirls) with Lucian Msamatias Precious Ramotswe’s suitor.
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O - P

The other man: Richard Eyre, the well known English theatrical director, is directing (and adapting, along with playwright Charles Wood) this adaptation of the short story of the same name by Bernhard Schlink (which is in the collection Flights of love). The story centres around a man who is convinced his wife is cheating on him and sets out to track down her possible lover. A first rate cast is led by Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Antonio Banderas and Romola Garai.
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The Oxford Murders: This bestselling novel, first translated in 2005 from the Spanish (Crimenes imperceptibles, 2003), by Guillermo Martinez takes its readers into the higher realms of mathematics and intertwines it with a murder mystery. It has a young Argentinian maths student coming to Oxford where he meets one of his idols, a world famous mathematician. A series of murders occur, each accompanied by a cryptic message which must be deciphered by the mathematical duo before the killer strikes again. The film version, made on location in Oxford and London has Elijah Wood as the student and John Hurt as the professor. Spanish actress Leonor Watling, Anna Massey, Julie Cox and Jim Carter are also in the cast and this British/French/Spanish co-production is directed by Alex de la Iglesia, the Spanish director of a series of suspense thrillers.
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Persepolis: Majane Satrapi’s graphic novels about an Iranian girl’s life in 1980s, post-revolutionary Iran have been widely acclaimed. Now she has turned her stories into a movie which has already won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
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Personal effects: Rick Moody’s novel The ice storm was successfully made into a film some years back by Ang Lee. This one is an adaptation of the short story Mansion on the hill which is in the 2000 short story collection Demonology. The story concerns two strangers, a man and a woman, who have both lost family members to murder and who are brought together by their respective court cases. The couple are played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Ashton Kutcher. Moody and director David Hollander have adapted the story and the supporting cast is led by Kathy Bates.
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The possibility of an island: Michel Houellebecq is possibly France’s most controversial author and his determined to shock novels have had international success despite, or perhaps because of, accusations of sexism and racism being hurled at him. Two of them have already been filmed to mixed success and this one, based on the 2005 novel, first translated into English 2006, is the usual misanthropic mixture, this time featuring a truly bilious comedian and a cloning cult that resembles the real life Raelians. Houellebecq is directing and adapting the novel himself and the French cast is headed by Benoit Magimel, Patrick Bauchau and the glamorous Arielle Dombasle, famous as much for being the wife of France’s top popular philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.
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The private lives of Pippa Lee: The 2008 novel by Rebecca Miller (daughter of Arthur and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis) is about a woman pushing fifty who is married to a man about thirty years older. When he decides – as many an affluent older American seems to do – that the future is to be found in a retirement home, the woman of the title gets alarmed and remembers the life she has led up to that point where she was the kind of woman who’d never think of ending up in a retirement home. Pippa is played as an adult by Robin Wright Penn with Madeline McNulty as child Pippa and Blake Lively as her in teenage years. An impressive cast includes Alan Arkin as the husband, Julianne Moore, Monica Bellucci, Keanu Reeves, Maria Bello and Winona Ryder. Miller has adapted her own novel as well as directing.
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Push: The first novel by singer and poet Sapphire came out in 1996 and twelve years later a film version appears. It’s the story of a Harlem teenager who’s been abused by both parents and grown up poor, illiterate, overweight, angry and unloved. She is mentored by a kindly teacher and her thoughts are recorded in a journal and her hard won literacy results in poetry and a life that is improved by support groups. Lee Daniels, whose only previous movie was Shadowboxer, directs and Gabourey Gabby’ Sidibe, a Harlem resident who had been working towards a degree in psychology, makes her film debut in the lead. Paula Patton plays her mentor and comedian/reality show host Mo’nique plays her mother with Lenny Kravitz making his film debut as a kindly nurse.
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R - S

Radio Free Albemuth: Philip K. Dick’s novel was not published in his lifetime. He died in 1982 and this one didn’t make it into print until 1987. In this semi-autobiographical story Alanis Morissette plays a woman who shows up as a glamorous singer in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Jonathan Scarfe). In reality, she’s an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick’s visions, gets a job as his secretary. She becomes his soul mate thanks to the pair’s shared spirituality and visions. The film is a low budget independent production that marks the directing debut of John Alan Simon and the supporting cast includes Shea Whigham, Katheryn Winnick and Frances Fisher.
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Rain fall: Actress Kyoko Hasegawa is appearing with British actor Gary Oldman in the thriller “Rain Fall,” the first of Barry Eisler’s books to be filmed. Eisler’s six books (this one was first published in 2002) revolve around John Rain, a Japanese-American freelance assassin and former CIA operative. Rain will be played by Japanese actor Kippei Shiina while Oldman plays the head of the CIA’s Tokyo office. The film is being predominantly shot in Japanese with only 15% of the dialogue in English.
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The reader: A film version of the bestselling German novel, first published in English in 1997, has been on the cards for some time. It was translated into various languages and was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. It is set in postwar Germany where a young man’s decades-long obsession with an older woman runs headlong into a war crimes trial, where he learns a terrible truth.The film was to star Nicole Kidman but she pulled out and was replaced by Kate Winslet. Stephen Daldry, director, and David Hare, writer, who worked together on The hours are doing the same on this one and a large cast includes Ralph Fiennes, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, Linda Bassett and Karoline Herfurth.
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The Restraint Of Beasts: The 1998 novel by Magnus Mills was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year. The novel is a very clever black comedy about two Scottish labourers who travel south to England for a job mending fences. It’s narrated by “the foreman” who is keen on efficiency but won’t get it from his employees. The film version is directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and produced by Tanya Seghatchian, the duo who made the excellent screen version of the Helen Cross novel My summer of love. The cast is headed by Rhys Ifans, Ben Whishaw, Warren Clarke and Eddie Marsan.
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Revolutionary road: Richard Yates (1926-1992) is one of those authors known as much for being a novelist’s novelist as anything else. He has had a small but growing reputation over the years and now most of his novels have come back into print. This novel, his first, came out in 1961 and was a finalist for the National Book Award that year. It’s about the sour side of the American Dream and a suburban couple living in Connecticut in the 1950s, ostensibly with the perfect life. British theatre and film director Sam Mendes has cast his wife Kate Winslet in the lead with Leonardo Di Caprio as the husband, Michael Shannon and Kathy Bates.
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The road: Cormac McCarthy has been doing well lately with the very successful film version of No country for old men and a low budget version of his early novel Outer dark on the way. The 2006 novel The road became the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner and a bestseller and this was all before Miss O. Winfrey waved her magic wand at the book and sent it even higher in the charts. Pretty good for a dystopian tale. It’s set in a post apocalyptic utterly ravaged and lawless future America where a father has to take his son to safety. Australian director John Hillcoat is behind this one and Kodi Smit-McPhee, the young Aussie actor from Romulus my father is the son. The father and mother are played by Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron with a large supporting cast that includes Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall.
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The ruby in the smoke: An adaptation of the first novel, published 1985, of the Sally Lockhart quartet. Sally is a lively young Victorian girl who, armed with a pistol, a thorough grounding in the principles of military tactics and a working knowledge of Hindustani, embarks on a journey to discover the truth behind her father’s death, and unravel why his colleague dies of fear after she utters the three little words: "The Seven Blessings". The character of Sally is a plum role for Billie Piper in this BBC television and Julie Walters has the scene stealing role of the villain. Others in the cast include Robert Glenister, Don Gilet, Hayley Atwell and David Harewood.
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The ruins: Scott Smith’s 2006 novel is a violent action thriller with a strong horror component about a bunch of tourists in Mexico who run into trouble with some sinister locals and even more sinister vegetation. Former fashion photographer Carter Smith directs a film that enthusiastically promises a lot of blood and gore and stars Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, Jonathan Tucker and Laura Ramsey.
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The rum diary: Based on Hunter S. Thompson’s 1998 novel The rum diaries, this is the story that is taken from the early days Thompson spent as a journalist at a newspaper in San Juan in the 1950s. The film stars Johnny Depp, Josh Hartnett, Benicio Del Toro and Nick Nolte.
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The secret of Moonacre: A classic children’s novel from 1946, Elizabeth Goudge’s The little white horse, was first filmed for television as a 1967 series but this is its first outing on the big screen. Gabor Csupo, who has previously produced children’s fare in the Rugrats and Wild Thornberrys series but also directed the recent successful film of Bridge to Terabithia, is directing this adaptation of the story about an orphan girl who travels to Moonacre Manor in the West Country where she discovers she is the last Moon princess and is charged with rescuing her kingdom from ruin. Maria is played by Dakota Blue Richards and the supporting cast includes Natascha McElhone, Ioan Gruffudd, Juliet Stevenson and Tim Curry.
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The secret life of bees: Sue Monk Kidd’s 2002 novel, a favourite with book clubs, is about a young girl who grows up on a peach farm in South Carolina in the 1960s. Her mother has been killed some years before, her father is brutal and overbearing and her only real companion is Rosaleen, a black woman who acts as a sort of surrogate mother. When things turn nastier, the two run away and are taken in by a trio of beekeeping sisters. The film version is directed and adapted by Gina Prince-Bythewood who has a background in television. Dakota Fanning plays the young girl and Rosaleen is played by Jennifer Hudson. The three sisters are Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo and the supporting cast includes Paul Bettany and Hilarie Burton.
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Shutter Island: Dennis Lehane has already had two novels successfully filmed: Mystic river and Gone baby gone. This third adaptation of his work is quite different in that the 2003 novel Shutter Island is a standalone work a long way removed from his tales of crime and police in Boston. It’s a gothic tale set on the island of the title which houses a psychiatric hospital from which a patient who has committed a number of murders escapes. To add to the drama a hurricane is raging as police search the island and to cap it all the hospital (this is all taking place in 1954) may be up to no good. It’s a thriller that relies on a surprise revelation to rival the likes of the The sixth sense. It’s an odd choice for director Martin Scorsese and it has a big name cast including Leonardo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Max Von Sydow, Michelle Williams and Patricia Clarkson.
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The soloist: Based on the true story of musical prodigy Nathaniel Ayers, who developed schizophrenia during his second year at Juilliard and ended up homeless on the streets of downtown LA where he performs the violin and the cello. The 2008 book, by Steve Lopez, has been filmed on location in L.A. by British director Joe Wright. In a fascinating article in New Yorker (vol. 64, no 12 – 5/5/08 – available for library customers on our Ebscohost database), Wright, the well known British director, apparently stipulated that he wanted to have real homeless people involved in the locations for the film. Jamie Foxx plays Ayers and Robert Downey Jr plays author Steve Lopez with Catherine Keener and Tom Hollander supporting.
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Snow Angels: An adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s first novel, published 1994. The narrator of the novel has been haunted by the murder of a former babysitter which happened when he was in high school. The novel examines what led up to the death. Sam Rockwell, Amanda Peet and Emily Mortimer play the leads.
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Suburban girl (was The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing): The story of Melissa Bank’s bestselling 1999 novel involves a young New York book editor who defines her success according to the type of man she can get. This ’every woman’ meets a rich, powerful older man and thinks her troubles are over when really they have just begun. One of the more popular earlier chicklit novels (arguably, this one is borderline chicklit), it has taken a while to get to the screen, Filming in New York, it is adapted and directed by Marc Klein (who made the romantic comedy, Serendipity) and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alec Baldwin and Maggie Grace.
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T-V

The tale of Despereaux: Kate DiCamillo’s 2003 novel, was a Newbery Award winner. This delightful fairy tale about a very clever mouse, an awkward servant girl and a devious rat, is yet another children’s title becoming a big animated feature. Mike Johnson, who c-directed The corpse bride, directs and the voices are done by Matthew Broderick, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin Kline, Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Tracey Ullman, William H. Macy and Emma Watson.
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Tenderness: Russell Crowe is starring in this adaptation of the 1997 YA novel by Robert Cormier, playing a policeman who tries to unravel the complicated past of a teenager (played by Jon Foster) who may have murdered his family and who has a dangerous relationship with a runaway girl (played by Sophie Traub). Laura Dern also stars and the film is directed by John Polson, an Australian now based in the U.S.
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Therese Raquin: There’ve been earlier versions of Emile Zola’s classic novel, first published in English in 1881, about a passionate woman and the love affair that ruins her. In this version Therese is played by German actress Franka Potente, her lover Laurent by Joseph Fiennes, the husband they murder by Ewen Bremner. The supporting cast is headed by Glenn Close.
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The Thief Lord: The bestselling German novel — first translated into English in 2002 — is a children’s book about a gang of orphans hired to steal the missing component of a magic carousel capable of changing adults into children and vice versa. Filming in Germany, the cast of English actors includes Jim Carter, Janet McTeer, Alexei Sayle, Vanessa Redgrave and Margaret Tyzack in the adult parts.
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Twilight: Stephenie Meyer, author of the hugely popular YA series that mixes romance and today’s favourite monsters, vampires, has become as much a phenomenon as an author. Twilight, published 2005, is the first in a series about a teenage girl who moves from Arizona to Washington where she falls in love with a mysterious classmate who turns out to be a vampire. Catherine Hardwicke, whose last film, ironically, was The nativity story, directs and the cast includes Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter series) as the romantic duo, Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser and Jackson Rathbone.
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The vintner’s luck: Elizabeth Knox’s 1998 novel, which won two Montana awards back in 1999, has taken a long time to get to the screen but expectations are high with Niki Caro directing. The story, about a 19th century winemaker in France and his lifelong relationship with an angel, is sufficiently unusual to be both a risk and a potential hit. Location filming has been done in France and in New Zealand and the international cast includes Belgian actor Jeremie Renier as the vintner, Keisha Castle-Hughes as his wife, French actor Gaspard Ulliel as the angel, and American actress Vera Farmiga.
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W-Z

Where the wild things are: The Maurice Sendak picture book classic from 1963 about Max, the little boy who creates his own world of a forest inhabited by the wild things of the title, has been adapted for the screen by novelist Dave Eggers. The film, directed by Spike Jonze, is a mixture of live action, CGI and animatronics and was partly made in Australia. The cast includes Max Records (as Max), Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Michelle Williams some in the flesh, some voicing characters.
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The women: Claire Boothe Luce’s play was first produced in 1936 and has been an enduring hit with actresses because it gives its all women cast good lines and endless bitchery so it is a play that encourages over the top diva style acting. It was first made into a movie in 1939 with Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford, remade for television in 1955 with Mary Astor and Paulette Goddard, called The opposite sex in 1956 with Joan Collins and June Allyson, filmed as Women in New York by dour German director Rainer Maria Fassbinder in 1977 and now it is being brought to the screen by Diane English who comes from American television comedy, most notably Murphy Brown. The cast includes Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing and Candice Bergen.
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Yes man: British comedy writer Danny Wallace’s 2005 book is about how on the advice of a stranger on the bus, he spent six months saying yes where he might previously have said no. The locale of the book has been changed from London to Los Angeles and the film becomes a vehicle for Jim Carrey. Peyton Reed, whose last film was the hit comedy The break-up, directs and the cast also includes Zooey Deschanel, Danny Masterson, Terence Stamp and New Zealand actor Rhys Darby.
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