There are a number of givens when one is confronted with a Nicholas Sparks story, the surest thing being that you will cry. Oh yes, you will weep. That is, if you're one of the many out there predisposed to falling under the spell of Sparks's carefully crafted, timeworn magic formula of love, tears, and tragedy. But how does this week's Zac Efron-starring The Lucky One measure up to its predecessors in terms of The Sparks Quotient?
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Suzanne Collins can start her victory lap now. The film version of her first Hunger Games novel is on the brink of blowing up box-office records – and critics and fans like it, too. Other young-adult fantasy authors haven’t been quite so successful in dealing with Hollywood. Some of Collins’s success was luck and good timing: her first Hunger Games book was released a month after Stephenie Meyer’s final Twilight novel appeared, sending publishers and studios alike scrambling for the next young-adult franchise. But Collins also skillfully played the game with and for the filmmakers, making deliberate choices about how she wrote the novels and how she helped market them to the books’ fierce fans. Forget teenage love triangles or wizards vs. werewolves; here's a far more practical list of dos and don'ts for when your popular young-adult fantasy book is being adapted by Hollywood. (Spoilers for lesser movies ahead.)
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Not to worry, Barry Levinson's still hard at work hammering that Gotti: Three Generations biopic into something that's starting to kinda-sorta resemble The Godfather, depending on how much you buy into Levinson's hype. But first, Deadline reports, Levinson and Gotti co-star Al Pacino (who most recently teamed up on the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning You Don't Know Jack) will film their adaptation of Philip Roth's 2009 erotically-tinged novel The Humbling. Cue the sexy sexagenarian shenanigans!
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The Ginnifer Goodwin-Kate Hudson chick lit adaptation Something Borrowed, based on Emily Giffin's bestselling beach read, didn't exactly score with critics (Read Stephanie Zacharek's takedown here) and came in at #4 over the weekend with a $13.9 box office take. But producer Molly Smith, speaking to Movieline Monday, is optimistic that a sequel will move forward -- and she's counting on fans of the novel to buoy demand.
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Following the disappointing fantasy dud Red Riding Hood, Catherine Hardwicke will direct an adaptation that's perhaps more in her wheelhouse: the angsty female friendship drama The Bitch Posse. Martha O'Conner's 2006 novel follows three damaged heroines from their senior year of high school into their 30s, divided by a terrible secret that tears them apart. Sex, drugs, cutting -- what three young actresses could take on this material? Get to fantasy casting, Movieliners!
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