Wednesday 29 August 2012

Publishing giant Random House jumps into TV show production

Publishing giant Random House jumps into TV show production



Toronto Star

One for the Money

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum book series was already made into a movie, One for the Money, starring Katherine Heigl. Is a TV series next?
Alyshah Hasham
Staff Reporter
Game of Thrones, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Dexter, Bones, Gossip Girl … some of the best (or at least most popular) shows on television sprang straight from books.
And now one of the world’s biggest book publishers wants in on the action.
The U.S. division of Random House is joining hands with FremantleMedia (who gave us American Idol, The Bill and The X Factor) to create Random House Television.
The partnership will develop shows based off the books published by Random House and collaborate with some of the company’s top authors for original content.
The new venture is headed by Jeffrey Levine, who has worked on movies like Blood Diamond and Monster-in-Law and executive produced HBO’s acclaimed TV movie Too Big to Fail.
The television branch joins the publisher’s film arm, which started in 2005 and has produced Reservation Road (2007), One Day (2011) and Lay the Favourite (2012).
Publishing giant Macmillan is also planning to extend its film division into television, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The publishers are planning TV spinoffs for Gossip Girl-like series Prep School Confidential and supernatural military novel SEAL Team 666.
Random House hasn’t mentioned which books are being considered for its new project, but many of its top-selling series’ are already TV shows including Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli and Isles, John Grisham’s The Firm and George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.
Here are a few of Random House’s top-sellers, which perhaps have a shot at a being made into a TV series.
• Karin Slaughter’s bestselling detective thrillers with ominous one-word names like Triptych, Fractured, Criminal and Faithless.
• Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series recently adapted into film One for the Money starring Katherine Heigl.
• Alexander McCall Smith, best known for the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books, which were made into a series by HBO and BBC, has four others detective series on the go.
• Lauren Kate’s Fallen series of teen paranormal romances.
• Jonathan Kellerman’s many psychologist-detective Alex Delaware thrillers
• Kevin Hearne’s Arizona-based fantasy series about the last living druid, the Iron Druid Chronicles.

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