Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome (or at least fun to read). Need your book industry news? Never fear, Kate Copeseeley is here to give it to you straight.
In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: #OliverTwist The Musical, MORE #MaryPoppins Casting News , Cormoran Strike Series, and Toni Morrison Awarded. 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.
Cormoran Strike Picked By HBO
Well, this is fun news, for those of you who are interested in murder mystery type shows. Or hot guys. Because there is one of those as well. But first thing’s first. HBO snagged Rowling’s Cormoran Strike for TV viewing.
Rowling’s first major novel after the Harry Potter series, the politically tinged The Casual Vacancy, was adapted into a miniseries by BBC and HBO in 2015, and now HBO has landed yet another TV series adaptation of a J.K. Rowling book.
We learned in 2014 that Rowling’s series of Cormoran Strike mystery novels was to be adapted for the small screen by the BBC, and now Deadline reports that HBO is once again partnering with BBC on the project, bringing Cormoran Strike to U.S. airwaves.
For this TV adaptation, dubbed Cormoran Strike, HBO and BBC are crafting three separate event series out of the three novels. The Cuckoo’s Calling will be a three-hour event, while The Silkworm and Career of Evil will each run for two hours.
Michael Keilor (Line of Duty) will direct The Cuckoo’s Calling, with Ben Richards(The Tunnel) penning the first two installments and Tom Edge (The Last Dragon Slayer) handling the screenplay for Career of Evil.
But that’s not all, people. They’ve already picked their leading man detective:
Tom Burke, the War and Peace hearthrob, has been cast as Cormoran Strike in the BBC’s adaptation of JK Rowling’s gritty crime novels.
Burke, who played the dashing Dolokhov in the Tolstoy period drama, is to play damaged war veteran Strike in a three-part “event drama” based on Rowling’s crime novels.
The BBC has now confirmed the lead role will be taken by Burke, the 35-year-old actor Rowling praised as “massively talented”.
The character is described in the first book as “sixteen stone of dishevelled male”, swearing, bruised and unkempt after living out of a bag in his office.
“His height, his general hairiness, coupled with a gently expanding belly, suggested a grizzly bear,” Rowling writes.
But casting directors appear to have kept their female audience in mind, with fans already declaring Burke “the most handsome man in the world”.
Rowling said: “I’m thrilled about the casting of Tom Burke, a massively talented actor who’ll bring the character to perfect life.
“Cormoran Strike is pure joy to write and I can’t wait to see Tom play him.”
Oh yeah, I will totally be watching this. 🙂
Oliver Twist The Musical
And now for today’s most surprising news… not only is there going to be a new version of Oliver Twist, but Ice Cube is running this train!!!
Ice Cube is teaming up with Disney and Tommy Kail, the Tony-award winning director of Hamilton for a “modern and musical” take on that old chestnut, Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Ice Cube will be all over this thing, co-starring, producing and writing the adaptation, which will be a “modern musical with sources describing it as crossing many genres, including hip-hop.” If that wasn’t abundantly clear because of Hamilton, well, now you know.
The tragic tale of Oliver Twist, child laborer turned pickpocket apprentice, has been adapted many times. The most notable version is Disnye’s 1988 animated musical Oliver & Company in which Oliver is an adorable ginger kitten who runs with a pack of equally adorable animated dogs that run the streets of New York City. If you’re not familiar with that underrated Disney hit, surely you’ve sat through a high school musical’s capable staging of Oliver! or have regaled someone with your best British accent in an imitation of this scene, from the 1969 movie musical.
And OMG Ice Cube will be playing Fagin!? Not only that, but Thomas Kail of Hamilton fame will be directing:
Kail is known for collaborating with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the rapper-composer’s musicals In the Heights and Hamilton. He also directed Grease Live!, Fox’s live TV take on the classic movie musical that starred Julianne Hough and Vanessa Hudgens and that was produced by Platt (whose next film outing is the upcoming Ryan Gosling-Emma Stone musical La La Land).
MORE Mary Poppins Casting News
Wow, we have seen casting news just pouring in for this new version of our beloved Disney Classic. This time it’s Colin Firth joining up.
Anyone worried that Disney’s forthcoming Mary Poppins sequel/”reboot” wouldn’t somehow feature Colin Firth can breathe a sigh of relief: the impeccably British star’s role in the film, Mary Poppins Returns, has just been confirmed.
Firth will be playing William Weatherall Wilkins, president of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. Poppins herself will be played by Emily Blunt, while the film will also star Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda as a street lamp-lighter named Jack.
The institution is run by the elderly, forbidding Mr Dawes Sr, who eventually dies during a laughter fit after hearing a joke about a man with a “wooden leg named Smith”, and is succeeded by his son, Dawes Jr. It is unclear whether or not Firth’s character has any link to the Dawes family, or whether the bank is now under new management.
Damn, he’s pretty.
Fox Will Animate The Girl Who Drank The Moon
I’ve never read this book, but it seems pretty adorable. I think it might be the right age range for my oldest.
Fox Animation has acquired the rights to acclaimed children’s novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon, an epic coming-of-age fairy tale written by Kelly Barnhill. Marc Haimes, who recently co-wrote the script for Laika and Focus Features’ Kubo and the Two Strings, has been set to adapt the script.
Veteran animation director Carlos Saldanha, who directed Rio for Fox, and Maresa Pullman will produce through their BottleCap Productions banner. Darlene Caamano Loquet and Fox Animation president Vanessa Morrison are executives on the project.
It’s in development and is expected to be a hybrid live-action/animation, sure to whet the appetite of family audiences, if response to the book is anything to go by.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon sees the people of a land called the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to a witch who lives in the forest in the hope that the sacrifice will prevent her from terrorizing their town. But the catch is, she’s a kind witch called Xan, who shares her home with a swamp monster named Glerk and a tiny dragon named Fyrian.
When the townspeople abandon the babies, Xan rescues them and re-homes them with loving families on the other side of the forest. As she travels through the forest with them, she nourishes them with starlight until one night she accidentally feeds a baby moonlight, which fills the child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides to keep this baby and name her Luna. But as the girl’s 13th birthday approaches, her magic begins to surface with potentially dangerous consequences.
Lost Lord of the Rings Book?
What is all this? I have seen some scrounging for “lost manuscripts before” but never in regards to Tolkien.
Before Arwen chose the mortal life to live with the true King of Gondor, Beren and Lúthien were miles (and centuries) ahead of them. And a new book set in the world of Middle-earth will reveal their untold story.
J.R.R. Tolkien, the mastermind behind The Lord of the Rings universe, has written a book vital to the history and mythology of Middle Earth, Beren and Luthien, from beyond the grave. Granted, it’s not really Tolkien publishing or editing (it’s HarperCollins and Tolkien’s now 91-year-old son Christopher, respectively), but Tolkien did write it. And, now, we’ll be getting another Tolkien masterpiece in 2017, a century after it was first written.
The story of Beren and Lúthien takes place in the First Age of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, about six thousand five hundred years before the Fellowship gets together in The Lord of the Rings. Beren and Lúthien’s story, one of romance and adventure, is super important in understanding Middle-earth’s mythology and chronology. Both characters are featured prominently in the book The Silmarillion where they even get their own chapter in Middle-earth’s history.
This new book will undoubtedly fill in the minimal blanks and canonize some of the ever-changing information surrounding this part of Middle-earth’s history. No one ever accused Tolkien of letting sleeping dogs lie, and there have been several iterations of the story since he first wrote it 100 years ago.
I’m not certain about the plot. It seems rather tragic. But if you’re a Tolkien fan, you’re probably drooling all over yourself right now.
Toni Morrison Recognized For Lifetime Achievement
If you’ve had an English class, chances are you’ve read Toni Morrison. Whether you enjoyed her work or not, it’s impossible to forget them, which is probably why they stand the test of time so well. This is also probably why she was recently honored for her body of work.
Toni Morrison received a lifetime achievement award Thursday night from the PEN American Center, a ceremony of music and words that ended with a special treat from the guest of honor: An excerpt from a novel in progress.
Hundreds gathered Thursday night at the New School auditorium in Manhattan as the Nobel winner received a prize named for a previous laureate, the $25,000 PEN/Saul Bellow Award. Billed as “Dangerous Work: An Evening With Toni Morrison,” the 90-minute event was a tribute to her ideas and to the music of her language, fitting for a writer who has collaborated on an opera and called one of her novels “Jazz.”
The 85-year-old Morrison, eyes looking out from under a wide-brimmed hat, spoke of how “meaningful” each of her books were, like children to whom she had given birth. Noting that she might not get “another half or full decade,” she announced, to excited murmurs from the audience, that a new work was underway and shared some lines from the opening section, narrated by a mute.
Interesting Links:
Awful Almost Titles of Famous Books
Adorable Harry Potter Photoshoot (Featuring Very Cute Baby)
Kate Copeseeley
Latest posts by Kate Copeseeley (see all)
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Hebe
The Tolkien book isn’t a new story at all – from what I can gather, it’s basically a compilation of everything Tolkien wrote about Beren and Luthien that hasn’t been published, edited together by Christopher Tolkien. The Tolkien estate has done similar things before – The Children of Hurin most recently, but even the Silmarillion is largely “selected and arranged” by Christopher, not JRRT. Essentially it’s a cash grab somewhat misleadingly published as a coherent work – most of Tolkien’s notes were never even remotely intended for publication.
(Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant!)
Hebe recently posted…Review: The King
Carina Olsen
Twitter: CarinaOlsen
Yay for bunch of awesome news 🙂 Thank you for sharing it all Kate. <3 You are awesome. Not really interested in most of it, hih 😀 Buuut, I did adore The Girl Who Drank The Moon. <3 It was an awesome book. And I cannot wait to watch the movie 😀 Hope you are doing good sweetie. <3
Carina Olsen recently posted…Waiting on Wednesday #267