Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Book-to-Film Adaptations

Several of my favorite and/or recently read books are being made into movies. I am very interested to see how a director visualizes these stories. Here is a list of such movies that are in production:

1) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. This one stars Rachel Weisz & Mark Wahlberg as mourning parents after their daughter (Saoirse Ronan from Atonement) is found raped & murdered. It was a touching read and should be interesting on film. I am also interested to see Mark Wahlberg play this kind of character.

2) My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I mentioned this one in a previous post, but I will give a few details here, too. This movie will star Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, and Alec Baldwin to name a few. A child who was born solely to be a match for her sister, who has cancer, decides that she no longer wants her body to be used for that purpose, and seeks legal help to do so.

3) Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Fans are anxiously awaiting (and discussing) who the cast will be in this one. It has a huge following. How they will possibly portray this whole story in a single 2 to 2 1/2 hours is beyond me. This is a story about two very different magicians in the 19th century.

4) The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This book is a hard one to explain, but the story-telling is great and I couldn't put it down.

5) The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. This is a modern day story of vampires and the search for the truth about them.

6) Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. I probably don't need much explanation on this one.

My friend Emily will be interested to hear that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon is also being adapted as a film. I guess that means she'll have to read the book now!

It seems like this last year has been a good year for book-to-movie adaptations, including No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Atonement, just to name a few.

This is just the ones I am aware of (and am familiar with). Got any others to add to the list?

2 comments:

kate diago. said...

i read a book ( "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich) about the M.i.T. brain pods who figured out how to count cards and took vegas for millions...i hear they're making a movie about it now called '21'! it was a great story - made my palms sweat - i burned through it in a coupla' days! not sure how the movie will be tho...

Linz McC said...

I've seen the trailer for 21. I'll have to check out the book. Thanks for the recommendation!