Spielberg’s The 39 Clues
DreamWorks has acquired rights to The 39 Clues, Scholastic’s 10-book fantasy adventure series which will launch on September 9th 2008. Steven Spielberg is considering directing the project. Scholastic is hoping to replicate the success of the Harry Potter book series.
Benjamin Franklin, Mozart, Napoleon and Houdini are just some of the relatives of the most powerful family in the world - the Cahills. Grace, the Cahill clan matriarch is found dead just moments after she has changed her will, giving her descendants the choice between $1 million or a clue. Yes, one of 39 clues which reveal the source of the family’s powers. The series will follow two young Cahills, Amy, 14, and Dan, 11, who enter into a race against other branches of the family to be the first to find the 39 clues that will lead to ultimate power.
“The 39 Clues takes creative leaps to expand the story experience from the pages of the books to multiple stages of discovery and imagination,” Spielberg said in a statement.
The books will come out once every two or three months, released over the next two years, the multimedia adventure will include a set of collectible cards and an online game with a $10,000 grand prize. If Spielberg were to direct The 39 Clues, it would be after he finishes production on the TinTin series and his announced Abraham Lincoln biopic.
source: Variety
JK Rowling’s New Harry Potter Mini-Movie
J.K. Rowling has penned a brand new story featuring the characters in her fantasy best-selling Harry Potter book series. According to the Sunday Mirror, the story is being adapted into a mini-movie which will be shown at Universal Studio’s The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida. The report says that all of the regular cast, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, are said to be involved. They will shoot the mini movie, and additional sequences and clips which will be included in the rides in Leavesden, Hertfordshire UK.
The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter is expected to open next year or early 2010 at Universal Studios Islands Of Adventure in Orlando. The 20-acre island will feature attractions, shops and restaurants set inside locations such as the Forbidden Forest, Hogsmeade Village and the iconic Hogwarts castle (concept art seen above).
Thanks to Alejandro of BlogHogwarts for passing this along.
Rowling Conjures Up Court Appearance
J.K. Rowling's hoping a little legal hocus-pocus will make an unauthorized Harry Potter book disappear.
The megaselling author took center stage in a Manhattan federal court Monday and testified that the planned reference guide, The Harry Potter Lexicon, "constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work."
Rowling, 42, and Warner Bros. Entertainment filed suit last October against Steven Vander Ark, owner of the Harry Potter Lexicon website and Michigan-based RDR Books. The complaint accused the defendants of copyright infringement and claimed the publication of an encyclopedia without permission violated Rowling's intellectual property rights and undermined her ability to issue her own definitive guide to the fantasy world she created.
"Words she slaved over…now appear in a book under the name of somebody else," Rowling's attorney, Dale Cendali, told judge Robert P. Patterson in opening remarks.
For her part, Rowling said the battle over Lexicon has "decimated my creative work over the last month" to the point where she's been forced to set aside her latest novel.
"I really don't want to cry," she said, when quizzed about how she felt about the publication of the guide.
Cendali said RDR's enterprise was a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the phenomenally successful Potter books, which have sold more than 400 million copies and spawned five feature films that have grossed more than $4.5 billion.
Defense attorney Anthony Falzone, however, cited fair-use doctrine, which he believed gave RDR and the website's editor more than enough leeway "to organize and discuss the complicated and very elaborate world of Harry Potter."
That sentiment was echoed by cocounsel David Saul Hammer, who told the judge on Friday that while the publisher does not plan to contest Rowling's infringement claims that a sizeable chunk of her work was used without authorization, RDR's book shed scholarly light on the subject of Potter and was therefore protected.
Vander Ark, 50, has argued that he is within his right to put out the reference guide, retailing for $24.95 a pop, because it's culled from supplemental material generated by his Harry Potter Lexicon website, which Rowling has acknowledged being a fan of.
However, Rowling has likened the move to a plot by You-Know-Who.
She claims the site merely recycles copyrighted material she developed on her own, including listing characters, magical creatures, potions, spells and other Potter tidbits. At the same time, she argues, Vander Ark's tome leaves out original commentary and fan-based debates that she believed made the site so unique and helped enhance the experience.
Publishing such a companion guide for profit could seriously harm the revenue stream of professional writers and ultimately do a disservice to devotees of their work, she asserts.
"If RDR's position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet," Rowling says in court documents. "Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities."
As it stands, Rowling is not asking for damages or seeking to shut down the website, but just aims to block the guide's release.
The nonjury trial is expected to continue through the week.
It'll be up to the judge to determine whether RDR's book is a legitimate fair-use claim or constitutes what Rowling's camp says is a ripoff for monetary gain.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be Split into Two Movies
Harry Potter fans rejoice! Warner Bros is expected to officially announce plans to release the adaptation of the last and final Harry Potter book, split into two separate films. This makes more than perfect sense considering the 36 chapter plus epilogue book is a whopping 759 pages long. Fans have complained that the last two movies which suffered from plot compression. That’s probably because to hardcover releases of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix ranged from 734 to 896 pages in length.
Warner Bros will release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I in November 2010, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II six months later in May 2011. Both of the movies will be filmed concurrently. Screenwriter Steve Kloves, who wrote five of the fix films, is hard at work on both screenplays. Director David Yates, who directed both Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince (which began production in September) has already signed on for both sequels. Producer David Heyman explained to the LA Times:
“I swear to you it was born out of purely creative reasons. Unlike every other book, you cannot remove elements of this book. You can remove scenes of Ron playing quidditch from the fifth book, and you can remove Hermione and S.P.E.W. [Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare] and those subplots . . . but with the seventh, that can’t be done.” “The question will be, where do you break it? And how do you make them one but two separate and distinct stories? Do you break it with a moment of suspense or one of resolution? These are the interesting challenges. But each book has presented its challenges.”
The official book synopsis: “It all comes down to this - a final faceoff between good and evil. You plan to pull out all the stops, but every time you solve one mystery, three more evolve. Do you stay the course you started, despite your lack of progress? Do you detour and follow a new lead that may not help? Do you listen to your instincts, or your friends? Lord Voldemort is preparing for battle and so must Harry. With Ron and Hermione at his side, he’s trying to hunt down Voldemort’s Horcruxes, escape danger at every turn, and find a way to defeat evil once and for all. How does it all end?”
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hits theaters on November 21st 2008.