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.

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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Albert Schweitzer: The Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer’s life and career as Africa’s famous jungle doctor is the subject of this biographical drama. It is adapted from James Brabazon’s 1976 book, Albert Schweitzer: a biography. British director Gavin Millar has made the film on location in South Africa and Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbe plays Schweitzer with his wife Helene played by American actress Barbara Hershey. Samuel West, Judith Godreche. Armind Rohde (as Albert Einstein) and Jonathan Firth also star.
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Alice in wonderland: There have been so many adaptations – live, cartoon, musical – over the years that there wouldn’t seem to be room for one more. The next one, however, is Tim Burton’s take on the classic Lewis Carroll tale. Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter, Crispin Glover is the Knave of Hearts, Anne Hathaway is the White Queen, Helena Bonham Carter is the Red Queen, Michael Sheen is the White Rabbit, Alan Rickman is the Caterpillar, Stephen Fry is the Cheshire Cat, Christopher Lee is the Jabberwock and Mia Wasikowska is Alice. A big supporting cast includes Lindsay Duncan, Timothy Spall, Tim Pigott Smith and Matt Lucas who plays Tweedledum and Tweedeldee.
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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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The American: Anton Corbijn, who went from photographer to director with Control, the film about Ian Curtis of Joy Division, has chosen as his next film an adaptation of the 1991 novel A very private gentleman by the late English writer Martin Booth. It’s a clever piece of psychological suspense about an assassin who hides out in Italy where he is to do his final assignment. George Clooney is in the lead. He is partnered by Italian actress Violante Placido and Dutch actress Thekla Reuten with Paolo Bonacelli and Bruce Altman also starring.
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At risk: It’s been on the cards for a long time to bring Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series to the screen (last bulletins had Angelina Jolie as a possible) so in the meantime Cornwell comes to television with an adaptation of her 2006 stand alone novel. L’Oreal’s most irritating presenter Andie MacDowell is apparently worth it to play the lead here with Ashley Williams, Daniel Sunjata and Diahan Carroll leading the supporting cast.
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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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Ball don’t lie: Matt de la Pena’s 2005 YA novel is about a teenager who’s been through foster care and suffers from OCD but is saved by developing a talent on the basketball court. The novel follows him through one day in his life. The film, a first for director Brin Hill, portrays the life of Sticky, the boy (played by ESPN’s Grayson “The Professor” Boucher. Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Emilie de Ravin, Kim Hidalgo and Nick Cannon also star.
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The bang-bang club: The Bang-Bang Club is a 2000 memoir by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva set in a time of rivalry, comradeship, machismo, and exhilaration experienced by a band of young South African photographers as they documented their country's transition to democracy. South American documentary maker Steven Silver is directing and adapted the book and Ryan Philippe plays Marinovic and Neels Van Jaarsveld plays Silva with Malin Akerman and Taylor Kitsch as the other photographers. It is filmed in and around Johannesburg.
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Barney’s version: This adaptation of the 1997 Mordecai Richler novel follows a man (Paul Giamatti) who has lead a reckless life highlighted by three marriages. Now suffering from Alzheimer's, he becomes a suspect in the mysterious disappearance of his bosom buddy. Richard Lewis directs the film version on location in Rome and the supporting cast includes Dustin Hoffman, Rosamond Pike, Scott Speedman, Bruce Greenwood and Minnie Driver.
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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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Beastly: The 2007 Young Adult novel by Alex Flinn is a modern spin on the Beauty and the Beast tale, locating it in Manhattan and centering on an arrogant school student who is transformed into a monster and can only regain his human form by falling in love. The movie, targeted straight at that goldmine audience of preteen and early teen girls, features Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen, Neil Patrick Harris and Peter Krause.
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Ben Hur: Charlton Heston speeding along in his chariot is an indelible memory for many moviegoers and so it may be timely that a remake comes along. This one, adapted from the 1880 novel by Lew Wallace, a general who fought in the American Civil War, is a miniseries for television made by Canadian and British companies. The title character is played by Welsh actor Joseph Morgan with a supporting cast, largely British, including Ray Winstone, Marc Warren, Alex Kingston, James Faulkner, Hugh Bonneville, Art Malik and Kristin Kreuk.
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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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Boogie woogie: Danny Moynihan, who knew the art scene both as an exhibitor and a curator, made his debut as a novelist with a book that slagged off the art scene mercilessly. It’s taken a while to get to the screen but it may be worth it as it has an impressive cast including Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Stellan Sjkarsgard, Joanna Lumley, Heather Graham, Amanda Seyfried, Charlotte Rampling, Christopher Lee, Alan Cumming. Alfie Allen and Jaime Winstone (daughter of Ray).
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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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Brighton Rock: Graham Greene’s 1938 novel is one of his best but the theological aspects of it have troubled readers for years. It’s set in a brilliantly evoked Brighton where holiday crowds and criminals intertwine. His main character Pinkie is a young psychopathic gangster and the barmaid who feels that justice should be served is seen as wanting because she hasn’t got the concept of good and evil that our young villain possesses! This didn’t come out as strongly in the 1947 film version where Richard Attenborough played Pinkie. The new film has Sam Riley as Pinkie and Helen Mirren as Ida, the barmaid. Andrea Riseborough (replacing Carey Mulligan who was to star) plays the girl Pinkie marries and the cast also includes Pete Postlethwaite and John Hurt. The period has been changed to 1964, the time of the Mods and Rockers on the South Coast of England.
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Buddha’s little finger: The Viktor Pelevin novel, originally published in Russia and translated in 2000, is an interesting meditation on identity and Russian history, as well as a spectacular elaboration of Buddhist philosophy. It moves between events of the Russian Civil War of 1919 and the thoughts of a man incarcerated in a contemporary Moscow psychiatric hospital and it’s a brave enterprise for any filmmaker. It is directed by Tony Pemberton and it features French actor Jean-Marc Barr and English actors Sophia Myles and Rupert Friend.
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C

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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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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Crowley: Geeta Anand’s 2006 book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million--And Bucked the Medical Establishment--In a Quest to Save His Children is about John Crowley and his fight to save his child from a debilitating disease. The film version has Brendan Fraser as the father and Keri Russell as his wife with Harrison Ford as a fictionalised version of Doctor William Canfield who worked with the Crowley family. British director Tom Vaughan is behind the camera on this one.
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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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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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Death of a superhero: New Zealand writer Anthony McCarten has adapted and directed his own 2005 novel for this film, a Kiwi/German co-production. Freddie Highmore is playing the leading character, a 14 year old boy who uses a fictional comic book to distract him from his struggle with leukaemia. Locations are being filmed here with the animated sequences done in Germany. The co-star is a rising German actress, Jessica Schwarz, who has recently appeared in a film of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks and a bio-movie of the life of Romy Schneider.
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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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Diary of a Wimpy kid: Jeff Kinney has written three children’s novels in this series and the film version seems to be based on the first novel which came out in 2007. There was – so they say – a nine month search to find a boy who could play Greg Heffley, the title character, and the part went to Zachary Gordon. Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris play his parents with Devon Bostick as his brother and Robert Capron as his best friend.
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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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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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E

The Eagle Of The Ninth: Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 novel became a British television series in 1977 and now it is going to be tried out on the big screen. It has been adapted by Jeremy Brock who has a good pedigree with the screenplays of Mrs Brown and The last king of Scotland. The novel is the first in a series set in Ancient Rome and the film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, has a good cast including Jamie Bell, Channing Tatum, Mark Strong, Douglas Henshall, Donald Sutherland and Tahar Rahim.
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Eat, pray, love: Richard Jenkins, the character actor who hit the jackpot with his performance in Eat, pray, love, hits the big time by playing a Texan who meets Julia Roberts in an ashram in the – inevitable! – film version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s phenomenal 2006 bestseller. Ryan Murphy, who created the hit series Nip/tuckis directing this tale of a woman’s self discovery and locations include India, Bali, Rome and New York.
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Eclipse: The third in the phenomenal YA series by Stephenie Meyer came out in 2007 and the film version comes out in 2010. David Slade, who directed the vampire yarn 30 days of night which was filmed partly in Auckland, is directing this one. As before, the leads are Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson with a supporting cast including Bryce Dallas Howard, Ashley Greene, Jodelle Ferland, Catarina Sandino Moreno and Peter Facinelli.
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Eleven minutes: Mickey Rourke, Alice Braga, and Vincent Cassel are starring in an adaptation of Paulo Coelho's 2003 novel which Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad is directing. Braga stars as a naive girl who swears off romance after a bad experience with her first lover. However, she only swears off the romance part; the girl becomes a high-priced call girl working at a club in Geneva, owned by Rourke's character. Then Cassel gets thrown into the mix, playing a music executive "who gets her hooked on S&M." Filming of this steamy tale takes place in Brazil.
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End zone: Don De Lillo’s novel, his second, came out in 1972 and it has taken this long to make its way to the screen. It is the story of a young footballer at a West Texas college which is in its first year of integrated teams. Josh Hartnett is playing the lead role with Sam Rockwell and Kat Dennings in the other lead roles. The director is George Ratliff whose previous movie was an odd and unsuccessful psychological thriller called Joshua.
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The extra man: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who directed the wonderful American splendour and the less than wonderful adaptation of The nanny diaries are adapting and directing this 1998 novel by American humourist Jonathan Ames. Kevin Kline is playing an unsuccessful playwright who works as an escort for rich Manhattan widows and develops a mentor/student relationship with an aspiring young playwright (Paul Dano). A quite diverse supporting cast includes Katie Holmes, John C. Reilly, Cathy Moriarty and blast from the past Patti D’Arbanville.
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F

Fair game: Valerie Plame Wilson’s 2007 book, subtitled My life as a spy, my betrayal by the White House hits the screen with Naomi Watts as Wilson. The story is an intriguing one, dealing as it does with the wife of an American ambassador (played in the movie by Sean Penn) who was outed as a CIA agent in 2003. Doug Liman, who made The Bourne identity, directs with Simon Baker, Brooke Smith and Bruce McGill leading the supporting cast.
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Flipped: Wendelin Van Draanen’s 2001 Young Adult novel revolves around the confusing romantic developments of antagonistic boy and girl neighbours who eventually share a kiss when they reach their teens. It takes place between 1953 and 1957. The boy and girl are played by Australian actor Callan McAuliffe and American actress Madeline Carroll. The parents are played by Rebecca De Mornay, Aidan Quinn, Penelope Ann Miller and Anthony Edwards and the director is Rob Reiner.
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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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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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Get it at Goode’s: Monica Bellucci, Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto are set to star in Bruce Beresford’s upcoming romantic comedy. This adaptation of Madeleine St John’s delightful 1993 novel The Women In Black has been one of Beresford’s plans for some years. The story concerns the ups and downs of a group of sales ladies and their families at the high fashion salon of a department store in Sydney named Goode’s
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The ghost: It’s scandalous British politics in the forefront in Robert Harris’s bestselling 2007 novel. It tells the story of a former British Prime Minister who’s in the process of writing his memoirs. When the death of a colleague disrupts his life, a ghostwriter is called in to assist him in completing the book. Naturally the ghostwriter digs up some dirt. The badly behaved politician is played by Pierce Brosnan and the ghostwriter by Ewan McGregor in a film directed by Roman Polanski, an odd choice for such a British tale. The P.M.’s wife is played by Olivia Williams and Kim Cattrall is his secretary. Timothy Hutton, James Belushi and Tom Wilkinson are also in the cast.
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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

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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How To Train Your Dragon: Cressida Cowell’s 2003 children’s book, featuring Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, a Viking who is able to speak the language of dragons, and his personal dragon, Toothless. Ideal material for an animated feature and the IMAX 3-D production uses the voices of Jay Baruchel, Amber Ferrera, Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson.
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I - J

I hope they serve beer in hell: The 2006 book by Tucker Max seems ideal for the crude comedy market that has basically been franchised by Judd Apatow and all. The book is a collection of anecdotal tales about having sex, getting drunk and doing anything that might be considered inappropriate. The film is actually based on one of the stories, The Austin Road Trip, in the book. The film version features Matt Szuchry, who hails from TV series like The Gilmore girls and Friday night lights, is playing Tucker Max with a cast that includes Jesse Bradford, Marika Dominczyk and Traci Lords.
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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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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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An Invisible Sign Of My Own: Most people wouldn’t have been lucky enough to have a maths teacher who looked like Jessica Alba but this is what she plays in this adaptation of the 2000 novel by Aimee Bender. The story concerns Mona Gray, a young girl who turned to mathematics as a means of dealing with a devastating family illness. Years later, Mona teaches the subject, and does her best to help her students contend with their own personal crises. J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina and Sonia Braga also star and the director is Marilyn Agrelo, who made Mad hot ballroom.
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Invictus: John Carlin’s 2008 book Playing the enemy: Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation might seem an odd choice for Clint Eastwood as director but his recent efforts have been pretty varied. The film follows Mandela's attempt to use the 1995 Rugby World Cup to heal his nation following his release from prison, the fall of apartheid and his election as president of South Africa. And that title refers to a poem – by Victorian poet William Ernest Henley - often recited by Mandela. Morgan Freeman plays Mandela and Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar, Captain of the South African team for the 1995 World Cup.
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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

Kaitangata Twitch: Margaret Mahy’s 2005 novel is set in a small South Island coastal village and the television version was commissioned by Maori TV and will be screened in 2010. Yvonne Mackay directs and filming was done in the Governor’s Bay area. The production has been planned for a 13 episode series and the Maori content has been increased. The major child character, Meredith, is played by Te Waimarie Kessell who is the niece of the well known Kiwi actress Simone Kessell. Her mother is played by Miriama Smith, her father by Charles Mesure and her sister by Kerry-Lee Dewing. George Henare plays the mysterious old man Lee Kaa.
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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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The killer inside me: The 1952 pulp fiction classic by Jim Thompson is one of his most downbeat titles and it was made into a film with Stacy Keach as the small town deputy who seems like the quintessential ordinary guy but is actually psychotic. The new version is directed by the prolific British director Michael Winterbottom and features Casey Affleck in the lead role, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Bill Pullman, Liam Aiken, Ned Beatty and Elias Koteas.
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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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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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London boulevard: The 2001 novel by Irish noir specialist Ken Bruen is the first film as director for William Monahan, a screenwriter best known for the Martin Scorsese movie The departed. It is just the sort of gangsters behaving badly tale that the British film industry has been glutted with since Guy Ritchie played around south of the river (Thames). It’s about a man released from prison for a crime he can’t remember committing who gets work at the home of a fading movie actress (Keira Knightley) while trying to dodge a ruthless lowlife gangster (who else but Ray Winstone). David Thewlis and Anna Friel are also in the cast.
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The long walk: Slawomir Rawicz’s book, originally published in 1956, has been an international bestseller for years. It’s the story of a group of soldiers who engineered a gruelling escape from a Siberian gulag in 1942. Australian director Peter Weir (who tackled Gallipoli in his time) is making this one with Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Mark Strong and Saiorse Ronan leading the cast and locations in Bulgaria.
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Love And Other Drugs: Viagra as the theme for a romantic comedy? This is an adaptation of a 2005 book Hard sell: the education of a Viagra salesman by Jamie Reidy. The book is an expose of the author’s time working for the big drug company Pfizer whose products include the famous performance enhancing help for men. The film sounds a quirky affair in that it centres on the main character’s romance with a woman who has Parkinson’s disease. Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway play the leads with George Segal, Hank Azaria, Judy Greer, Jill Clayburgh, Oliver Platt and Gabriel Macht. Edward Zwick directs.
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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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The men who stare at goats: Jon Ronson is an English journalist and documentary film maker and his 2004 book is a funny and alarming book about the American military and its involvement with the supernatural and the wackier fringes of belief. It is a very clever satirical work (a nonfiction Catch-22 of sorts) but it is also a scary one in that the author swears all the lunacy he observed is true. Grant Heslov directs and there is a top flight cast led by George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, Robert Patrick and Stephen Lang.
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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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Moby Dick: Time for another adaptation of the enduring 1851 classic by Herman Melville. This one is the biggest production so far of German outfit Telemunchen who are partnered with an Austrian group and making the epic television miniseries in English The megalomaniac Captain Ahab is played by William Hurt with English actor Charlie Cox as Ishmael, the narrator of the tale as a new crewman on the final fatal voyage of the whaling ship Pequod. The First Officer Starbuck is played by Ethan Hawke and Ahab’s wife by Gillian Anderson. Donald Sutherland plays Father Mapple, Eddie Marsan is Stubb and Raoul Trujillo is Queequegg.; Read the Book ~ About the Film
Mr Nice: This title will be republished in early 2010. It originally came out in 1996 and it is the autobiography of Howard Marks. Mr Nice he may have been to some but he did spend most of his time travelling the world deceiving people under some 43 aliases, financing his tricks by money laundering and drug smuggling while keeping your spirits up by smoking industrial quantities of dope. He’s played by Rhys Ifans in the film with Chloe Sevigny as his wife. David Thewlis as an IRA boss, Andrew Tiernan and Elsa Pataky.
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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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Never let me go: The story of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel follows a young woman who was raised at a private school in the English countryside where children were sheltered from the outside world and told their well-being was crucial for the dystopian society they would eventually enter. When two former students come back into her life, they uncover the truth about their childhood and their lives. The film version is directed by American Mark Romanek whose background is music videos and novelist Alex Garland has adapted the novel for the screen. Keira Knighley leads the cast with three of the more talented younger English actresses: Sally Hawkins (from Mike Leigh’s Happy go lucky), Casey Mulligan (from the much praised An education) and Andrea Riseborough (who played Margaret Thatcher on British T.V. recently). The supporting cast includes Charlotte Rampling, Andrew Garfield and Nathalie Richard.
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New moon: No need to say much about his except it’s the inevitable adaptation of the second novel in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart return in the leads and this time the director is Paul Weitz.
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Night train: Nicolas Roeg has not had much luck since his glory days of films like Don’t look now with his last film, an adaptation of Fay Weldon’s Puffball getting a strong thumbs down from both critics and audiences. His latest is an adaptation of the 1997 Martin Amis novel about a female homicide detective who is investigating the supposed suicide of a young woman who is both a friend and the daughter of her former boss. The novel is something of a pastiche of a crime noir but much subtler. The film version has Sigourney Weaver in the lead with Nick Nolte, Toby Jones and Michael Madsen in the cast.
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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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Nowhere boy: An adaptation of the memoir by John Lennon’s half sister, Julia Baird, Imagine this: growing up with my brother John Lennon. It marks the directing debut of Sam Taylor-Wood, the well known British conceptual artist. It will focus on the influence his mother and his Aunt Mimi had on him. Lennon is played by Aaaron Johnson and Aunt Mimi by Kristin Scott Thomas. Anne-Marie Duff plays Lennon’s mother. Thomas Sangster is Paul McCartney and Sam Bell is George Harrison.
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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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Percy Jackson: The 2005 children’s fantasy novel The lightning thief, first in a series by Rick Riordan, focuses on Poseidon’s 12-year-old half-human son (Logan Lerman), who embarks on a quest across modern-day America to save his mother, return Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt and prevent a deadly war between the gods. A big cast includes Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin McKidd, Melina Kanakaredes and Sean Bean as gods and Catherine Keener as Percy’s mother. The director is Chris Columbus.
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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 pillars of the earth: A German television company is behind this large budget adaptation of Ken Follett’s 1989 novel set against a background of war, religious strife and power struggles tearing lives and families apart. All this as a giant cathedral is built. The major characters are Tom, the master builder (Rufus Sewell), Aliena, the noblewoman (Hayley Attwell), the sadistic Lord William (David Oakes), Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge (Matthew MacFadyen), Jack, the artist in stone work (Eddie Redmayne) and Ellen (Natalia Worner), the woman from the forest who casts a curse. Donald Sutherland, Sarah Parish, Robert Bathurst and a truckload of other English actors are in the cast.
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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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Precious: The first novel Push 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

Rabbit hole: An adaptation of the stage play, first produced in 2006, that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007. The play is about the accidental killing of a small child and how the pain and grief affects the parents and other members of their family. Most reviews of the play were very enthusiastic and most commented that the possibilities of such a story coming out like a self help manual or a TV movie were completely avoided. It does provide great parts for actors and it may revive Nicole Kidman’s faltering career. Aaron Eckhart plays the husband and others in the cast include Dianne Wiest, Sandra Oh, Jon Tennery and Tammy Blanchard. It is directed by John Cameron Mitchell who made the vastly different Shortbus.
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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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Ramona and Beezus: An adaptation of the popular series by Beverly Cleary which began back in 1955. As the many readers of this perennial series know, Ramona Quimby lives on Klickitat Street. The stories of her adventures began in Beezus and Ramona, where Beezus, who is just turning ten, finds four-year-old Ramona an exasperating little sister. Ramona and Beezus are played by Selena Gomez and Joey King with Sandra Oh, John Corbett, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Duhamel and Bridget Moynahan supporting.
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Rape: a love story: An adaptation of a 2003 novella by Joyce Carol Oates. Much of the work of this incredibly prolific writer (and yes, she does actually write them all herself!) is on the dark side but this is grimmer than most which makes this one a risky proposition for a time when escapism rings the box office bells. It’s about a mother who is the victim of a brutal gang rape, witnessed by her young daughter, and how the assailants stalk her. Maria Bello and Abigail Breslin play mother and daughter with Samuel L. Jackson as a sympathetic policeman and Harold Becker directing.
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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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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 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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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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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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Straw dogs: The notorious violent Sam Peckinpah film from 1971 is set to reach the screen again. This adaptation of the 1969 novel The siege of Trencher’s Farm is the story of a man and his wife who relocate to a rural home and have construction work done on their house. The locals are a bunch of ratbags who cause trouble and eventually there is a bloody standoff. The novel, now out of print but probably due for a reprint when the new film comes out, is a more subtle and interesting work but ultra violence is always profitable and the Peckinpah film was a big hit. The new version has James Marsden and Kate Bosworth in the husband and wife roles originally played by Dustin Hoffman and Susan George with Alexander Skarsgard, James Woods and Dominic Purcell supporting. The director is Rod Lurie and the location has been changed from England to America’s Deep South.
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Submarine: Joe Dunthorne’s 2008 novel is an often very funny tale of Oliver who is 15, obsessed with his virginity, in love with his own cleverness, and wildly trying to save his parents' marriage. He is, in common with many 15-year-olds, full of tremendous moral self-righteousness about adult failings and in possession of only half the facts. The location is South Wales and the novel is Dunthorne’s first. Richard Ayoade, who comes from television, has adapted the novel and directs his first feature film. Oliver is played by a young Welsh actor, Craig Roberts with the adult cast headed by Michael Sheen, Paddy Considine and Sally Hawkins.
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T-V

Tamara Drewe: Tamara Drewe started life as a comic strip – by Posy Simmonds - in The Guardian and it was intended as a modern working of Thomas Hardy’s novel Far from the madding crowd. The strip was gathered together in 2007 as a graphic novel and now it is headed for the screen. Tamara is a newspaper columnist well known for her beauty, much of which is plastic surgery work. She invades a writer’s retreat made up of well off upper middle class people and Simmonds is able to send up contemporary England very skilfully. Tamara in the film is played by Gemma Arterton (familiar with Thomas Hardy after her excellent performance in the recent TV Tess adaptation) and a promising cast includes Tamsin Grieg, Dominic Cooper, Roger Allam and Luke Evans. Stephen Frears directs.
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The tempest: There have been a number of adaptations of the Shakespeare play: some traditional, some modernised, some very idiosyncratic such as Derek Jarman’s version which had Elisabeth Welch singing “Stormy weather.” This new version is directed by Julie Taymor who made a recent version of Titus Andronicus as well as the Beatles film Across the universe. The lead character of Prospero becomes Prospera and Helen Mirren takes the role. There is an impressive cast including Dijimon Hounsou (Caliban), Felicity Jones (Miranda), Russell Brand (Trinculo), Ben Whishaw (Ariel), Chris Cooper (Antonio), Alan Cumming (Sebastian), Alfred Molina (Stephano), Geoffrey Rush (Gonzalo), etc.
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Twelve: Nick McDonell’s first novel came out in 2002 when he was 17. It’s a harsh unflattering portrait of teenage lives of drugs and the rest in the Upper East Side of New York. Joel Schumacher directs a cast including Chace Crawford as the high school dropout turned drug dealer whose life unravels when his cousin is murdered and his best friend is arrested for the crime. Also in the cast are Kiefer Sutherland, Emma Roberts, Ellen Barkin, 50 Cent and Rory Culkin.
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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 town: An adaptation of the 2004 Chuck Hogan novel Prince of Thieves, the story follows the relationship between a bank manager (Rebecca Hall), a career criminal (Ben Affleck) who falls for her during a robbery, and a dedicated FBI agent (Jon Hamm) trying to bust him. The agent sees her as his golden ticket to catching the criminal who is Boston's most infamous bank robber. Ben Affleck directs this thriller on location in Boston.
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Veronika decides to die: Veronika Decides to Die is the popular novel by Paulo Coelho, originally published in Portuguese in 1998 and translated into English in 2001. It tells the story of 24 year old Veronika, who appears to have everything in life going for her, but who decides to kill herself. You either get this Brazilian spiritual writer with his New Age/Christian mix or you don’t and a film version will surely divide audiences but may, in these gloomy times, be a hit. English director Emily Young is behind this one, filmed mostly in New York, and Sarah Michelle Gellar is playing Veronika with David Thewlis, Melissa Leo, Erika Christensen, Jonathan Tucker and Rena Owen also cast.
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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

Walter the farting dog: Walter, the dog with flatulence, has been immortalised in the bestselling children’s series, seven novels from 2001 to 2007 plus one in Latin, by William Kotzwinkle. It might seem like a match in heaven to have the Farrelly Brothers, who made bad taste fashionable in all those comedies from There’s something about Mary, behind the film version. To make all this rectal gas more acceptable, the squeaky clean Jonas Brothers are playing musicians whose parents are asked to care for the dog by an aunt just before she passes away.
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