The Dangerous Book for Boys April 9, 2008

I am not the biggest fan of the book but I know kids will be excited that The Dangerous Book for Boys is coming to the big screen. Information found at http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6548879.html.

The 2007 runaway best-seller The Dangerous Book for Boys is about to hit the big screen and the tube.

British authors Conn and Hal Iggulden were determined to woo boys away from their electronic, couch-potato lives. And they did so with their tongue-in-cheek how-to manual, which offers step-by-step instructions about treehouses, paper airplanes, fishing, and other traditional boy past-times. A new “factual” television series based on The Dangerous Book for Boys, (HarperCollins, 2007) is now in production and will feature celebrity fathers and their sons. The show will air on Britain’s Channel 5, with a possible spinoff for the United States.

Disney and U.S. producer Scott Rudin also have acquired the film rights to Dangerous Boys—following a bidding war. But we’ll have to see if the movie will appeal to British kids or their American cousins. When the book made its leap across the Atlantic to the U.S. market, various British boy staples had to be replaced for the American edition. 

Thus conkers was replaced with stickball. And Britain’s kings and queens historical list gave way to baseball’s “most valuable players.” Cricket was cut, along with Admiral Horatio Hornblower and the history of the British Empire. Added were the Wright Brothers, the Navajo code talkers of World War II, and Gettysburg and the Alamo.

Wimpy to the big screen? March 11, 2008

Fox 2000 has announced plans to bring Jeff Kinney’s bestselling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series to the big screen. The film adaptation is planned as a live-action family feature with hope of it could spawn a franchise for the studio.

Fox 2000 picked up the rights to the five Kinney novels - which combine handwriting and animation to tell the story of Greg Heffley. He is a normal middle school student who chronicles his daily struggles with bullies, family members and the problems with just being a kid.

The film is being produced by former Buena Vista president Nina Jacobson with Carla Hacken overseeing the production’s development. The studio is still looking for a director and screenwriter for the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Kinney’s first two “Wimpy Kid” books (”Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and February’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules,”) went to No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Kinney’s third book, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw,” is scheduled to be released later in 2008. He has two more books planned for the series.

Found here

Hugo’s Coming (maybe) to the Big Screen January 27, 2008

 

I read speculations about this relationship a few months ago. Hollywood needs to settle the writer’s strike and move on.

Now that Brian Selznick has a Caldecott-Medal under his belt for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic), could an Oscar be in the cards? Academy Award-winning director, writer, and producer Martin Scorsese has already bought the movie rights to the book, but the writer’s strike is holding things up, says radio talk show host Bob Edwards, who interviewed Selznick on January 25.

Selznick is no stranger to the big screen. His grandfather was a cousin of David Selznick, one of the icons of the Golden Age who was best known for producing the epic blockbuster Gone with the Wind (1939), starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. 

“He’s happy to be returning the Selznick name to Hollywood,” says Edwards, who hosts the Bob Edwards Show on XM Radio. 

Selnick’s Hugo Cabret, about a boy living inside a Paris train station in the 1930s, is the first novel to take the prize for the most distinguished American picture book for children. The 533-page novel, which won the Caldecott on January 14, uniquely advances its plot by offering page after page of detailed drawings, akin to the frames of a movie reel.

Scorsese, who has directed close to 50 films, nabbed an Academy Award for best director in 2006 for The Departed.

Retrieved from School Library Journal.

Into the Wild October 26, 2007

Tomrorow my friend Donna and I are finally seeing Into the Wild! I cannot wait…