Ever since the days of Gone With The Wind, Hollywood producers have been optioning bestselling books and whipping them into celluloid hits. At the Oscars this year, several books-and-now-they're-films will get nods, fromThe Social Network (loosely based on Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, which was loosely based on the lives of the smooth-cheeked geniuses behind Facebook) to True Grit(read Charles Portis' novel! Really, just do it), to 127 Hours (nee Between a Rock and a Hard Place), because some people prefer reading about a person slicing his own arm off to watching it happen.
But as the Oscars are almost here and will soon be over, and we have a long year ahead of us, I've decided to focus on (and give you a little preview of) the bumper crop of upcoming films based on books coming out in 2011. Some of them are based on masterpieces (I never met a Bronte sister I didn't like), and some, well...some are based on Something Borrowed. But they are all worth bringing up at your next dinner party when there's an uncomfortable lull in the conversation — because nothing can fill that space like debating whether or not the source material is better than the film, and so on. It's small talk gold.
Water For Elephants (April 22)
The Book: A runaway bestseller, Sara Gruen's historical novel centers on circus worker Jacob Jankowski and the eclectic cast of characters working for The Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Gruen wrote the novel in a month, apparently, basing the core of the book on the story of Jacob from the Book of Genesis. The paperback edition hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2007.
The Film: Combine one-part Reese Witherspoon and one-part Robert Pattinson, and a couple of pachyderms, and you may have Pattinson's most successful book-to-screen outing that isn'tTwilight. Bonus: Fewer screaming girls to contend with. Trailerhere.
See It With: Circus folk. You know some, right?
The Help (Fall 2011)
The Book: As Monkey See covered earliertoday, author Kathryn Stockett is in a bit of hot water over a lawsuit — but that won't stop her fable about three women of will kicking up dust in a sleepy southern town from continually topping the bestseller lists.
The Film: The cast is chock full of strong women: Viola Davis, Sissy Spacek, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson and Octavia Spencer. The massiveness of the book's sales should propel the movie to big box office, despite the fact that its Mississippi-born writer/director, actor Tate Taylor, has only made one other (small, indie) film.
See It With: Your mother. She's dying to go.
And there you have it! Which ones are you most excited for? And if these don't get your blood pressure up, there's always 2012, which will bring new adaptations of The Great Gatsby, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Giver, The Bell Jar, Moby Dickand of course, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Go Hollywood, go.
NPR for the rest
xoxo
Carrie
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