Buzz Worthy News: August 29, 2016

Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome. Need your book industry news? Never fear, Kate Copeseeley is here to give it to you straight.

In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: Arrival Trailer, #AnneOfGreenGables On Netflix, Spider-Man Casting News and Beauty & the Beast News. 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.

Arrival Trailer

This movie is based on a short story??? I am soooo reading it!! It looks freaking amazing.

Zendaya Cast As Spider-Man’s GF

Well, this is good news to me (not sure what everyone else thinks). I apologize to everyone who liked Kirsten Dunst in the role, but I WAS NOT IMPRESSED. Mary Jane is supposed to be a badass and Dunst was like, wilting and timid. No thanks. Hopefully Zendaya brings the zing.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is taking a fresh step into the 21st century with its latest reported casting update. Zendaya will play Spidey love interest Mary Jane Watson in the upcoming superhero revamp, according to the Wrap, which cited two individuals close to the film. A recent draft of the script apparently alludes to the role.

Homecoming will focus on Parker’s high-school years, and will star newcomer Tom Holland as the teen hero. When Zendaya was originally cast, it was announced she would play a character named “Michelle,”with no further details. New reports add that Michelle’s reveal as MJ is a plot twist that comes at the end of the film.

This would mark the first time a Spider-Man love interest is played by a non-white actress. Kirsten Dunst last played Mary Jane, while Emma Stone played Gwen Stacy in Spidey’s last incarnation.

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Joseph Fiennes Cast In A Handmaid’s Tale

This streaming series is filling up fast! I love Joseph Fiennes, he has such dreamy eyes. (I’m sure I’m dating myself, here, because he’s a little older of an actor, but still.)

With Elisabeth Moss already aboard to star, the new TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s tale is now adding Joseph Fiennes, who will play Commander Fred Waterford.

Atwood’s story is set in an unspecified, dark future where a totalitarian society known as Gilead (once part of the United States) has embraced a twisted religious fundamentalism as the way to combat environmental chaos and a dropping birthrate. The leaders consider women to be property of the state, and fertile women are highly valued while being treated essentially as sexual slaves. Moss’ Offred is the “handmaid” at Waterford’s estate and is part of the effort to repopulate the world.

She has to find a way to survive in a world of cruel leaders, domestic servants and spies, while also searching for the daughter that was taken from her. It’s the sort of story that still has resonance in today’s religiously split world and hopefully a TV series will offer the length and depth to explore it in ways a film can’t.

With Bruce Miller serving as creator, head writer and show-runner, the series will kick off shooting in Toronto this autumn for a 10-episode first season. It’s backed by US streaming service Hulu, so it’ll air there in the US next year.

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Anne Of Green Gables Coming To Netflix

AHHHHHHHH! OMG OMG OMG OMG Guys, you don’t know how much this means to me. Anne has been a favorite of mine FOREVER. I’ve read the books and seen the movies (which I own, not ashamed to tell you). I was really excited for this new version, but since it was airing in Canada, I was like, well, maybe I’ll buy it on disc someday. And then, Netflix heard my longing, because they bought the rights, y’all!

The streaming giant is teaming with CBC on the forthcoming TV adaptation of the popular book, it was announced Monday.

First announced in January, Anne hails from Emmy-winning writer Moira Walley-Beckett (Breaking Bad) and the two-hour series premiere will be directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider). The eight-episode drama will stream globally on Netflix and air on CBC in Canada in 2017.

Like the famed book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the series centers on a young orphaned girl in 1890, who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly spinster and her aging brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne transforms their lives and eventually the small town in which they live with her spirit, intellect and imagination.

Miranda de Pencier (Beginners) will executive produce under her Northwood Entertainment banner. Wally-Beckett, the series’ showrunner, also will exec produce with Alison Owen (Saving Mr. Banks) and Debra Hayward (Bridget Jones’s Diary). Susan Murdoch will produce. Production is set to begin next month in Ontario.

“Anne Shirley is one of Canada’s greatest gifts to the world, known and loved internationally, so we’re thrilled to be working with the CBC and Northwood to bring this charismatic character to both new and old fans around the world,” Netflix vp content Elizabeth Bradley said in a statement.

Said de Pencier: “Moira Walley-Beckett has written eight riveting, funny, emotional, surprising, beautiful hours of television. With the extraordinary talent of Niki Caro at the helm, we can’t wait to deliver our show to Netflix, CBC and the world. Netflix as our global partner means Anne’s indomitable spirit can now enter homes and hearts all over the world.”

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Beauty and the Beast Details

Disney has been letting these out drop-by-drop in SUCH FRUSTRATING SLOWNESS. But today I’ve got a couple of good ones for you.

First is a picture of Dan Stevens, who plays Beast, with his long hair. Looking good, buddy!
https://twitter.com/maconodom/status/769239281495904257/photo/1

The second is a couple of screen shots from a sneak peek that will be released on the upcoming anniversary edition of the original animated feature. The first is Lumiere and Cogsworth, and the second is Gaston and Le Fou in the tavern.

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Hugo Award Winners Are Out

And Chuck Tingle isn’t one of them. Sad Face. I can’t remember which of the nominations were the controversial ones, except Tingle. He was certainly the funniest. Haha Here is the full list of winners:

“4032 valid nominating ballots (4015 electronically-submitted and 17 paper) were received and counted. Members of the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Worldcons as of the end of January 2016 were eligible to make up to five equally-weighted nominations in each category.” (viaTor.com)

2016 Hugo Award Winners

Best Novel: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Best Novella: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Best Novelette: “Folding Beijing” written by Hao Jingfang and translated by Ken Liu

Best Short Story: “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer

Best Graphic Story: The Sandman: Overture written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated byJ.H. Williams III

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): The Martian screenplay written by Drew Goddard with a movie directed by Ridley Scott

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): Jessica Jones: “AKA Smile” written by Scott Reynolds, Melissa Rosenberg, and Jamie King with an episode directed by Michael Rymer

Best Editor (Long Form): Sheila E. Gilbert

Best Editor (Short Form): Ellen Datlow

Best Professional Artist: Abigail Larson

Best Semiprozine: Uncanny Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine: File 770 edited by Mike Glyer

Best Fan Writer: Mike Glyer

Best Fan Artist: Steve Stiles

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Andy Weir

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More News About Iron Man’s Successor

The more I read about this comic, the more excited I get!  Can’t wait to see what they do with the story!

LAST MONTH WE learned that Tony Stark would be stepping down as Iron Man, and bequeathing his role to Riri Williams, a young science prodigy who had fashioned her own version of Starks’s Iron Man suit. Now, in a WIRED exclusive, Marvel has revealed that when Williams officially steps into the role this November, she’ll be known as Ironheart.

Writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stefano Caselli have teamed up to create Ironheart’s beginning in this fall’s Invincible Iron Man #1.While Williams and Stark have recently met in the current run of Invincible Iron Man, the new volume will serve as the official transition into Riri’s Stark-sanctioned heroism.

The new character name, Bendis says, came out of a group discussion with editors.“Iron Woman seemed old fashioned to some,” he says. “Iron Maiden looked like a legal nightmare. And Ironheart, coined by Joe Quesada, after I told him my planned story for Riri, speaks not only to the soul of the character but to the Iron Man franchise as a whole. Tony first put on the armor to save his heart. Riri puts it on for different reasons altogether but still heart-related. When people see her story, you’ll be amazed at how simple and brilliant Joe’s suggestion was.”

Williams, who enrolled at MIT at 15, reverse-engineered a suit of power armor in her dorm room—but that doesn’t mean Stark won’t be part of the Iron Man ethos: Riri’s in-armor A.I. will based on Tony’s own personality. “Regardless of where he might be physically,” says Tom Breevort, who’s editing the series, “he’ll be soaring along with her spiritually.”

Ironheart is yet another signal—along with Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales as Spider-Man, Jane Foster as the new Thor, and Amadeus Cho as the Hulk—that Marvel is moving toward a more inclusive universe. And as with so many of those mantle-passings, the original announcement that an African-American woman would replace Tony Stark led to a backlash from the Internet’s comment sectioneers, as well as a separate conversation about the importance of who’s actually telling the stories. But for most, Williams taking the suit has been a celebration. As Bendis toldTime earlier this year, “We never had a meeting saying, ‘We need to create this character.’ It’s inspired by the world around me and not seeing that represented enough in popular culture.”

Either way, the cover art of Williams in her suit—along with its variant cover above, depicting Williams admiring her own handiwork—looks great. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if Bendis can tell an Ironheart story as great as the ones he’s given Tony Stark over the years.

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Another Adult Speaks Up About YA

You’d think people would have learned by now that commenting on a reading age grouping would be a bad idea. I mean really. Joe Nutt, of TES Global, a teacher’s publication, has taken to the internet to warn us all of the danger of YA. Yeah, the title of the story is literally called, “Why YA Fiction Is A Dangerous Fantasy.”

Can I just say this article makes no sense? Like, first he says:

“I’ve drafted an outline for a bestselling young adult novel. It features a transgender school dropout with autism who meets a self-harming vampire with a heart of gold, hell bent on bringing peace to the world. Together they embark on a magical quest to find an ancient crystal with the power to render all weapons useless. Oh, and the protagonist’s mother makes a living selling legal highs to illegal immigrants.

Nothing is more guaranteed to turn a teenager off a book than sensing the writer is proselytising.”

So books are too progressive and involve too much heavy stuff that we’re shoving down teens’ throats? But then he says this:

“Several generations of teenagers, especially boys, have been effectively prevented from ever becoming literate adults by a publishing industry that has decided young adult readers have an insatiable appetite for what amounts to nothing more than gossip fodder, the endless recycling of petty anxieties and celebrity confessions that choke the pages of magazines placed strategically at the supermarket checkout. So much young adult fiction is little more than a florid expansion of those headlines about the new love in Jennifer Aniston’s life, Taylor Swift’s dietary obsessions or Kim Kardashian’s latest sex tape.”

Ummmm… make up your mind, dude. Is YA vapid and shallow or too meaty and preachy? And could you maybe focus on what the supposed problem really is?  Where are your sources, sir?  Where are your statistics showing the supposed harm of YA the way is currently being written?

My problem with this article, and all these critiques of YA fiction is that they are written by old people who are not in the audience intended. Let the teens, the young adults of YA tell us what they want. Let’s stop telling them what they need.

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Sarah J Maas and The EOS Spoilers

This week twitter exploded when spoilers for EOS dropped and some people were not pleased. I’m not saying what the spoilers were and what happened.

Some fans took to twitter to hurl abuse at the author, with reports that some told the author to go kill herself – though I wasn’t able to find any of those tweets by the time I came across the drama.

The community then kind of turned on each other with each side of the debate – one arguing that SJM was being unfairly picked on and the other bringing up complaints of a lack of representation and mishandling of characters – turned on each other and began attacking each other on twitter and Goodreads.