Books, Adaptation | featured news

The superheroes will take just a little longer to arrive on the scene. Marvel Entertainment announced Thursday morning it was pushing back by a year a pair of key properties in its comic-book franchises, "Thor" and "Avengers." The pictures are moving from 2010 and 2011, respectively, to 2011 and 2012.

Rita Wilson has been cast in Universal's untitled Nancy Meyers project, which stars Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.

Matt Damon has signed on for "The Adjustment Bureau," a Philip K. Dick-inspired project with "action, romance and sci-fi overtones."

It seems the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels actor has been caught talking about his new role.

I've confirmed there's no director hired yet. And the two productions won't be back-to-back. But that hasn't stopped Summit Entertainment from newly scheduling its Twilight threequel for release on June 30, 2010, not long after its Twilight sequel New Moon set for November 20th this year now being helmed by Chris Weitz.

According to the trades, "The Departed" scribe William Monahan has been set by Paramount to adapt John Grisham's bestselling legal thriller "The Associate" as a star vehicle for Shia LaBeouf.

Just like Will Shakespeare, Jane Austen has gotten a lot of play by modern media. Just last year, she got a taste of time travel with the UK-based miniseries Lost in Austen.

MSN has debuted the new trailer for Columbia Pictures' Angels & Demons , opening in theaters on May 15th. Directed by Ron Howard, the suspense thriller stars Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgard, Pierfrancesco Favino, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Armin Mueller-Stahl. The film is based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown.

Now that he's pushed "Cleo" back a year, Steven Soderbergh is looking at directing an adaptation of Michael Lewis' bestselling "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game." Brad Pitt may star.

Five years ago, Al Pacino played Shylock in Michael Radford's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice , and now, it looks like the duo will be tackling another one of the Great Bard's plays with Pacino playing King Lear in a new film adaptation written and directed by Radford. According to Variety , this will be the first time that Pacino will play the character of King Lear, the aging monarch who selects his successor by parsing his kingdom in three parts, ruled by his trio of daughters.