Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome and not at all well-written. Need your YA industry news? Never fear, Kat Kennedy is here to give it to you straight.

In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: Canvas Media Acquistions, #BlackLivesMatter Movie, Dirk Gently Adaption, and Shadow Moon Gets a Wife. All this and more!

Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two.

Canvas Media Acquires Rights To Several Books

I don’t know who Canvas Media is, except they’re a start-up film company with a great deal of interest in New Leaf Literary product. It was just announced today that Canvas Media has acquired film rights to four series:

 The four properties under the deal are Carmack’s “Losing It” series (William Morrow); Mindee Arnett’s “The Nightmare Affair” series (Tor Teen), set at a supernatural boarding school; Kelly Fiore’s “Thicker Than Water” (HarperTeen), about an honor student who resorts to selling drugs in an effort to pay for college tuition; and gothic romance-horror novels “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and sequel “Between the Spark and the Burn” by April Genevieve Tucholke.

“We are looking forward to tackling contemporary young adult novels after our previous success with this genre and demographic,” said Tochterman, Canvas Media’s CEO. “It’s a great match between New Leaf’s library and Canvas’ brand of creating series franchises for millennial audiences.”

So I’m not sure if their motivation is television series or outright movie?

Recent Canvas productions include StyleHaul’s first scripted series, “Vanity,” with Denise Richards and Karrueche Tran, sponsored by Maybelline, and the recently announced “Socio” starring India Eisley, which will be produced in partnership with Judy McGrath’s Astronauts Wanted.

Sounds interesting! I (mostly) loved Losing It.

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The Hate U Give Adaption

After a huge bidding war and multiple offers, The Hate U Give has been won by Fox 2000.

A bidding war erupted after the book began making the rounds last week. There was interest from multiple studios and producers in the timely upcoming book, which is the debut novel from Angela Thomas. The film rights deal comes on the heels of the splashy 13-house auction in February that saw HarperCollins’ Balzer and Bray take the publishing rights.

Thomas’ story follows a 16-year-old girl named Starr who grew up in a poverty-stricken slum, but now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she’s torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.

Thomas started working on the story in 2011 while studying at Belhaven University. She even sought out her literary agent, Brooks Sherman, via Twitter, asking if a book based on the Black Lives Matter movement would get any traction. The title is based on Tupac Shakur’s tattoo, “T.H.U.G.”

Hunger Games actress Amandla Stenberg will star and George Tillman Jr. will direct the film adaptation from a script by Audrey Wells.

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Dirk Gently Adaption Gets Its Todd

America’s favorite hobbit is now going to be starring in the second most famous series by Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently.

Elijah Wood has been cast in “Dirk Gently,” the upcoming BBC America comedy from writer and director Max Landis. Wood will play Todd, the assistant to the title character, an eccentric detective. The series is based on the “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” novels by the late Douglas Adams.

The series, an absurdist comedy, will feature Wood’s character and the titular detective teaming to solve one overarching mystery in the course of the season. AMC Studios, Ideate Media and IDW Entertainment are co-producing the series with Circle of Confusion.

Wood is the star of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and the comedy series “Wilfred,” which ran for three seasons on FX.

In addition to writing “Dirk Gently,” Landis will serve as executive producer with Ted Adams and David Ozer for IDW; David Alpert and Rick Jacobs for Circle of Confusion and Zainir Aminullah and Arvind Ethan David for Ideate Media.

Landis is the writer of the script for the movie “Bright,” which Netflix purchased the rights to this month. The streaming service paid $3 million for the script and is expected to spend $90 million on the project, with Will Smith and Joel Edgerton attached to star and David Ayer set to direct.

My only question is: “English accent or not?”

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Shadow Moon Has a Wife!

Not content to fight Count Olaf in the movie version of A Series of Unfortunate Events or dupe other souls in The Host, Emily Browning has decided on marriage (the fake TV kind) with our beloved Ricky Whittle (of The 100 fame. *sob*). An unlike when I found out that Lincoln had been doomed to die(I mean, taking a nap, right Meg?) and was taking on a new role as Shadow Moon, I can be perfectly happy that Emily Browning will be playing Laura Moon.

In the novel, chronicling the struggle between the gods of old (mythological legends from around the world) and new (reflecting modern society’s love for money, technology and celebrity, among other things), Shadow (Whittle), freshly released from prison, is trying to come to grips with his suddenly changing life and his connection with the Norse god Odin. McShane is Mr. Wednesday, a crafty, charismatic con man bursting with weird wisdom, strange magic and big schemes who hires Shadow as his bodyguard while on a quest to recruit others like him.

As for Laura, she’s Shadow’s wife, but far more than that. A complicated character in her own right, she’ll go on her own journey, and from the looks of Gaiman’s comments, has been given even more to do in the series. “I’ve been fascinated by Emily Browning since A Series Of Unfortunate Events,” he says. “She has a challenge ahead of her: Laura is a tricky character, and the Laura on the screen is even trickier and more dangerous than the one on the page. She’s going to have a wonderful time bringing Laura to life.”

Exciting! This show is going to be soooo awesome! Can’t wait!

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The Little Prince Will Stream on Netflix

Well, of all the strange news, apparently Paramount suddenly dropped The Little Prince (like without announcement or warning). Like, my kids are gonna be so sad, suddenly. Anyway, here is Netflix to save the day so my kids won’t have to be disappointed! They bought the rights to stream the film on their service.

Netflix has not yet said when Americans can expect to see the film on the streaming service, but at least it has found a home.

Based on the beloved French children’s novella of the same name, The Little Prince debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last year, where it drew rave reviews. Since then, it has been released in several countries, grossing about $100 million in ticket sales. Its star-studded voice cast includes Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Paul Giamatti, Marion Cotillard, Ricky Gervais, James Franco, Benicio del Toro, and Paul Rudd.

Paramount has not explained why it decided to pull the acclaimed film from its schedule—but that hasn’t stopped the internet from speculating. It’s possible that the distributor was worried that the delicate French children’s story, along with the film’s unique stop-motion visuals, wouldn’t play well for American audiences. Or perhaps Paramount didn’t think the film could compete with Disney’s Zootopia, which has dominated the US box office since early March.

Whatever. I will cease being surprised by Hollywood’s shortsightedness one of these days.

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Amber Heard Cast As Mera

Who can forget this amazing, iconic (and super sexy) photo from when we first heard there would be an Aquaman movie? Yum. Of course they have to go and ruin it by giving him a WIFE. (haha, j/k Amber) (except I’m not):

ET confirmed on Thursday that the 29-year-old actress has been cast as Mera, the undersea queen and wife of Aquaman in the DC Comics canon. Heard will make her first appearance as Mera in 2017’s The Justice League Part One before appearing in the 2018 standalone Aquaman film opposite Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa.

“It’s interesting. It’s like, half suit of armor, half scales,” Heard revealed. “It’s strange… We’re in the process of building it now, so it’s coming along.”

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder is set to helm the two-part Justice League films, while Furious 7’s James Wan will be directing the Aquaman standalone feature.

I think the worst part of the Justice League type news is that Snyder will be directing again. :/

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JK Rowling Reveals Her Rejection Letters On Twitter

Proving that she is a sympathetic ear when it comes to hopeful authors, Rowling has posted a couple of her publisher rejections when she wrote under the name Robert Galbraith.

She posted the letters relating to her first post-Potter novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, after a fan asked for a picture of a rejection letter.

She said: “The Potter ones are now in a box in my attic, but I could show you RGalbraith’s?”.

By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath's rejection letters! (For inspiration, not revenge, so I've removed signatures.) pic.twitter.com/vVoc0x6r8W

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016

In case you can’t read the tiny print:

One of the letters, from publishing house Constable & Robinson, said: “I regret that we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we could not publish it [your book] with commercial success.”

The letter also suggested she “double-check in a helpful bookshop” or in the biannual “buyer’s guide of Bookseller magazine” about who the current publishers of her fiction genre were.

The second letter, from Creme de la Crime, explained that the publisher had become part of Severn House Publishers and was “unable to accept new submissions at the moment”.

In reply to a fan who asked if any of the publishers who had rejected her had turned downHarry Potter, she said: “Yes, the publisher who first turned down Harry also sent RGalbraith his rudest rejection (by email)!”.

She ended the conversation by giving a fan advice on getting the courage to “risk it all”, telling them: “I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try.”

She even inspired author Joanne Harris to comment on her own experience:

@jk_rowling @RGalbrath I got so many rejections for CHOCOLAT that I made a sculpture… 🙂

— Joanne Harris (@Joannechocolat) March 25, 2016

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Interesting Links

Fictional Islands that are Too Good To Be True

Why Publishing Is So White

Writing Women Characters Into Epic Fantasy