Books and films
These items aren't related, but they almost appear to be:
- nj points to The Origins of Tolkien's Middle-Earth for Dummies. I assumed this was a joke page, especially given reviews like this: "Let's face it. Tolkien's books are hard. There are so many people and places to keep track of that it's hard to keep track of them. This makes reading them hard. Luckily we have the movies. The third Lord of the Rings movie will be out soon and I can hardly wait. This Dummies book promised to make Tolkien easier, but it's hard to read too. If they make a movie of this book, it'll be the best ever!" But the book itself appears to be real. Gack. (I still assume the review is a joke.)
- supergee points to an article about a stage production based on Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, but that's not the interesting bit. The interesting bit is that there's going to be a movie trilogy of His Dark Materials, produced by New Line Cinema, and that Tom Stoppard has already written the screenplay for His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. There's a funny but (sadly) all-too-likely speculation about the effect of Hollywood on such a movie at bridgetothestars.net—warning: contains major spoilers for the trilogy. That speculation is particularly apropos given that Scholastic Entertainment ("the producer of such kid TV favorites as: Scholastic's Clifford The Big Red Dog") appears to be involved in the production; I don't know what they were thinking, if they actually read the books. But then, I don't know what the trilogy's publishers were thinking marketing it to kids; I'm astonished that it's sold so well in the US. (Not objecting, mind you; just kinda baffled that various groups aren't burning it in the streets.)