According to Publishers Weekly and several other industry sources, Random House has formed a partnership with Focus Features (part of NBC/Universal) to produce movies -- from RH books.
From what I can tell from the news reports, I can't see a downside to this. According to RH, no author will be required to sign over film rights (which can be worth a pretty penny) if they sign with the house, but the production company will only make movies from RH books.
They're not looking for "blockbusters" and have a moderate budget (well, for Hollywood it's moderate -- $20M a movie) which means the big name authors (Dan Brown, John Grisham, etc) wouldn't be considered.
But, that means they would be looking at the smaller, visual, solid stories. At least, that's my interpretation.
What do you all think? Is there a book that you think would make a great movie, but might be overlooked by the traditional Hollywood studios?
7 comments:
As a follow-up, one book I thought was really visual and rich in character and would make a great movie was KILLJOY by Julie Garwood. Out of all her romantic suspense novels, that's my absolutely favorite. The villainess is truly well-drawn and real; the setting (mountains) very visual and appealing; the heroine one of those "real people" heroines who really drew me in.
I've envisaged several of Lisa Gardner's rom-suspense thrillers as movies, probably because of the buildup in action and the characters and the interweaving of their private/personal demons with the suspense plot.
Oh, I love Lisa Gardner!!! I can totally see any of her books being made into movies. In fact, I wonder why they haven't been . . . someone in Hollywood is asleep at the helm!
Perhaps having a movie made from a book might be a good thing so long as you took the money, then disciplined yourself to never watch it. (Since they're almost always horrible. Especially romance and romantic suspense, where Susan Lucci, Jane Seymour or that actress from Little House on the Praire usually end up getting cast as the heroine.) Concidentally, here's a quote I read the other day from Dean Koontz about just this topic:
" I once asked my paperback Bantam to do an unusual design with the tie-in edition of HIDEAWAY. I wanted them to put a little starburst on the cover containing the words A MOVIE FOR MORONS."
Needless to say Bantam didn't do it. :)
Yes, Allison, asleep at the wheel. Definitely. And, Joann, you're right about taking the money and handing over control. I heard a romance author say that exact thing -- and it may even have been Nora. You take the money, say thank you, go shopping and never watch the movie! *g*
>>You take the money, say thank you, go shopping
Well, that part definitely sounds like Nora! LOL
I'll always remember how ticked off I was with THE SHINING (I was a huge Stephen King fan.) The movie was so good until the last 30 minutes. The ending was completely different from the book. Ticked me off to no end.
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