This coming Friday, three major movies with roots in novels or short stories appear.
Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as two gay cowboys in the 1960s West, is based on the short story by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $9.95, 0743271327). Larry McMurty wrote the screenplay.
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Memoirs of a Geisha, directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), starring Ziyi Zhang (the westernized version of Zhang Ziyi), Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh, is based on Arthur Golden's bestselling novel (Vintage, $14.95, 0679781587). The movie tells the story of a young girl sold into slavery by her father who becomes one of Japan's most illustrious geishas.
Newmarket serves an appropriately lavish and beguiling companion volume, Memoirs of Geisha: A Portrait of the Film ($40, 1557046832), which includes introductions by the director and author. Incidentally in his introduction, Golden describes the process of writing Memoirs of a Geisha as being like "driving in fog on a crowded road while reading a map and troubleshooting a serious problem with your car."
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Last but not least is the marketing campaign, er movie, called The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Directed by Andrew Adamson, this is the first in a series based on the epic Narnia fantasy by C.S. Lewis that features four children who discover the entrance to a magical world through an ordinary wardrobe.
Two of the many Narnia titles have been on bestseller lists for weeks already:
Among related titles:
Much ink has been spilled about how true to the text the movie is and whether it de-emphasizes the Christian message or not. The movie's potential audience variously has been compared with those for the Harry Potter movies and The Passion of the Christ. If it grabs a few Lord of the Rings fans, it could be titanic.
Already book sales have been spectacular. Toni Markiet, executive editor of children's books at Harper told the Globe and Mail that 95 million copies of the Chronicles of Narnia have sold worldwide since publication and sales this year should rise fivefold over usual sales patterns.
Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as two gay cowboys in the 1960s West, is based on the short story by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $9.95, 0743271327). Larry McMurty wrote the screenplay.
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Memoirs of a Geisha, directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), starring Ziyi Zhang (the westernized version of Zhang Ziyi), Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh, is based on Arthur Golden's bestselling novel (Vintage, $14.95, 0679781587). The movie tells the story of a young girl sold into slavery by her father who becomes one of Japan's most illustrious geishas.
Newmarket serves an appropriately lavish and beguiling companion volume, Memoirs of Geisha: A Portrait of the Film ($40, 1557046832), which includes introductions by the director and author. Incidentally in his introduction, Golden describes the process of writing Memoirs of a Geisha as being like "driving in fog on a crowded road while reading a map and troubleshooting a serious problem with your car."
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Last but not least is the marketing campaign, er movie, called The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Directed by Andrew Adamson, this is the first in a series based on the epic Narnia fantasy by C.S. Lewis that features four children who discover the entrance to a magical world through an ordinary wardrobe.
Two of the many Narnia titles have been on bestseller lists for weeks already:
- The adult trade paperback tie-in edition: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $19.99, 0060765453)
- The children's tie-in edition: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0060765461)
Among related titles:
- The Chronicles of the Narnia boxed set (HarperTrophy, $45, 0064471195).
- The Narnian, a biography of C.S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs (HarperSanFrancisco, $25.95, 0060766905).
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (HarperSanFrancisco, $11.95, 0060652888).
Much ink has been spilled about how true to the text the movie is and whether it de-emphasizes the Christian message or not. The movie's potential audience variously has been compared with those for the Harry Potter movies and The Passion of the Christ. If it grabs a few Lord of the Rings fans, it could be titanic.
Already book sales have been spectacular. Toni Markiet, executive editor of children's books at Harper told the Globe and Mail that 95 million copies of the Chronicles of Narnia have sold worldwide since publication and sales this year should rise fivefold over usual sales patterns.