Robin Shope novel to be a movie!

Author Robin Shope and Salty Earth Pictures have recently announced Shope's novel The Christmas Edition is to be a feature film.

Wisconsin newspaper The Daily Union online has run a piece which says in part:

Salty Earth Pictures has announced that it will begin filming a new feature movie later this year, with Fort Atkinson serving as the on-screen setting.

The non-profit film company based in Fort Atkinson specializes in producing Biblically-based entertainment, including such shows as the family-friendly comedy series "Fifth Pew From the Front" and the puppet-populated "Movie Critters" and its follow-up 30-minute series.

Company founder Steve Zambo announced the feature film will be based on the novel, "The Christmas Edition," which was written by Robin Shope. Shope, an author now living in Dallas, Texas, has written a series of novels that are set in Wisconsin, known as The Turtle Creek Edition series.

...Without revealing too much of the story, "The Christmas Edition" movie will be based on a struggling family-owned business in a small Wisconsin town. It focuses on relationships, secrets, trust, faith and the hope that Christmas and its message provide.

"The Christmas Edition is one of her series of books, like The Valentine Edition and The Easter Edition," Zambo explained. "They all take place in Wisconsin."

Zambo recalled how one day, he received an invitation via Facebook to do the movie adaptation.

"I had known she was an author because a mutual friend had written some other books with her," Zambo said. "So I joined, and she said 'take a look at my books.' I did, and right about then we had made the decision to make some more features, like our project 'Scrooge's Next Christmas.' But that is a bigger budget movie, and we needed a bridge picture, like the movie 'Facing the Giants,' which was filmed by a small group in Georgia."

So Shope sent Zambo the books, read by his daughter.

"She knew we needed to do a picture that we could do within a reasonable budget, and my daughter said, 'Here Dad, read this.'

And Zambo decided to adapt The Christmas Edition for the screen.

Read the full article here.

Read our interview with Robin.
Read our review of The Christmas Edition.

Riven by Jerry B. Jenkins to be a movie

According to Dallas Jenkins, Jerry's son and the co-founder with him of Jenkins Entertainment, Jerry's novel Riven is to be a movie.

Says Dallas at his blog:

"We've also decided that Riven, the book my Dad wrote that came out last year (and for my money, is his best book), is going to be the second film in the Jenkins/Pureflix partnership. We will be talking to screenwriters in the next couple of weeks and hope to be in production by the end of the year. I'm actually going to send a letter to Joe Eszterhas, the famous screenwriter of Basic Instinct, Flashdance, Music Box, and Jagged Edge, among others, who recently became a Christian. I know it's a long shot, but I think he'd be interested in some of the films we're doing. His books are incredible (any aspiring filmmaker should read The Devil's Guide to Hollywood), including his recent one, Crossbearer, which is about his conversion. Maybe Riven will strike a chord, or perhaps Youngest Hero, which is about baseball, one of his great loves. We'll see."

Read the rest of the blog here.

Read our review of Riven.
Read our interview with Jerry B. Jenkins.
Read our interview with Dallas Jenkins.

Nikki Arana's Winds of Sonoma to be movie

Nikki Arana has recently sold the film rights for The Winds of Sonoma to a production company. Shooting is scheduled to start next summer. She will be a script consultant for the project which is tentatively scheduled to release in early 2009.

Read our interview with Nikki here.
Read our review of Nikki's latest novel As I Have Loved You here.

Robert Liparulo book and movie news

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – In a unique twist on the film option process, THOMAS NELSON has announced that their leading thriller author Robert Liparulo (COMES A HORSEMAN, GERM) is partnering with director Andrew Davis (THE GUARDIAN, THE FUGITIVE, HOLES) on a new thriller to be developed into both a movie and a novel. Mike Medavoy’s Phoenix Pictures (ZODIAC, STEALTH, THE SIXTH DAY) has optioned the movie rights for the yet-to-be-titled project, which Thomas Nelson will publish.

“Robert Liparulo and Andrew Davis is a match made in storytelling heaven,” says Liparulo’s publisher Allen Arnold. “Liparulo writes extraordinarily exciting suspense and action stories and few filmmakers have done better in that genre than Davis.”

Liparulo and Davis will co-write the screenplay, which Liparulo will solely pen into a novel. The plot centers on a military construction project in Illinois where evidence of the oldest known settlement in the Western Hemisphere is uncovered. Soon after, the lead archeologist makes an even more startling discovery: the remains of a recent murder victim. Fearing that an investigation will jeopardize the archeological treasures of the site, he and his team - accustomed to piecing together clues to solve mysteries - decide to investigate on their own. What they uncover is a conspiracy bigger than they could have ever possibly guessed, one that threatens thousands of lives and the U.S. government itself.

“Thomas Nelson is focused on entertainment driven properties,” Arnold continued. “This project is a natural given Liparulo’s acclaimed writing and the connection with top Hollywood talent who are committed to making this into a movie before it is even written.”

Read our interview with Robert Liparulo here.
Read our review of Germ here.

Ted Dekker's "Blink" now "Blink of an Eye"

Ted Dekker's Blink is being reissued in hardcover as Blink of an Eye by Thomas Nelson.

Dekker told TitleTrakk.com in a recent interview: "Blink is coming out as a movie, too, and I’m rewriting the book for the movie. It will be truly different from the original."

Interesting. Check out the entire interview here.

Read our newest interview with Ted here.