Fiction to Film: Oscar Noms & 2010

I have come to realize that the most anticipated film adaptation can often fall flat, especially when it comes to Academy Award expectations. 2009's film scene is no exception. Two highly adaptation The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones both were released with underwhelming responses.

Yet, even though by early 2007 I had determined fiction adaptations weren't going to cut it with the Academy, 2008 & 2009's award ceremonies proved me wrong with 3 of their five Oscar nominated films, including the eventual Oscar winner's going on to fictional adaptations.

So as I re-crunched the numbers this evening, including the 2010 Oscar ceremony nominees (only two of the ten come from novels, Up In The Air by Walter Kirn and Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

So counting this year's nominees over the past 10 years, 20 of the 55 Best Picture nominated films have come from fiction (36.4%).

So I'm not ready to write off fiction and it's relation to the Oscars yet, I'm just learning that you never know what books are going to make the cross over.

So with that being said here are some of the 2010 fiction adaptations in the works...

• Helen Mirren is set to star in an adaptation of Magda Szabo's The Door


• The Coen Brothers remake True Grit based on Charles Portis novel


• Oscar nominees Carey Mulligan and Keira Knighley star in the adaptation of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro


• Keira Knighley also appears in an adaptation of London Boulevard by Ken Bruen


• Chris Columbus is set to direct an adaptation of the best-selling novel Kathryn Stockett's The Help


• Johnny Depp stars in the adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary


• Martin Scorcese directs the adaptation of Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island


• Oscar nominated director Lasse Hallestrom directs an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel Dear John which is released just a few months before another Sparks novel hits the screen, with The Last Song staring Miley Cyrus


• George Clooney stars in The American based on A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth
  
• Will this be the year we see Stephen Daldry's forever postponed project adapting Pulitzer winner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon? Probably not, but it could happen.


• Similarly, is Billy Bob Thornton still set to star in the adaptation of Peace Like a River by Leif Enger?


• Jude Law & Forrest Whitaker star in Repo Men based on the new sci-fi novel by Eric Garcia, The Repossession Mambo


• Ben Affleck directs, adapts and stars in The Town based on Chuck Hogan's Prince of Thieves


• Paul Giamatti stars as Barney Panofsky in an a film adaptation of Mordecai Richler's novel Barney's Version


• Emily Blunt is rumored to star in Shoot the Messenger based on the novel Lying on the Couch by Irvin D. Yalom.
  
• Brendan Gleeson directs and stars in an adaptation Flann O'Brein's At Swim-Two-Birds


• Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman star in a film based off David Ebershoff's The Danish Girl.


• Roman Polanski directs The Ghost Writer based on Robert Harris' The Ghost


• Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Charlize Theron are rumored to star in an adaptation scripted by Mark Richard based on his short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World.


• We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver is being directed and adapted by Lynee Ramsay. The story tells about a mother of a 15 year old son who killed multiple people at his school in Columbine-style massacre, writing letters to her estranged husband.


• David Mamet will direct the screenplay adapted by his wife Rebecca Pidgeon of the 1932 novel Come Back to Sorrento by Dawn Powell.


• Helen Mirren, William Hurt, Carey Mulligan, and Sam Reilly will star in Brighton Rock based on the classic Graham Greene. This novel was previously adapted for 1947 film.


• In realm of fantasy and youth themes we will see large scale adaptations of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (Jack Black as Gulliver), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part I), C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eclipse the third film in the Twilligt series, Tim Burton's higly publicized adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland, From the Percy Jackson & the Olmpian series comes The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordian.


• Not to exclude mentions is Romana and Beezus based on Beverly Cleary's Romona novels, and adaptations of Eagle of The Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid.


• And how could I not mention, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (and Jane Austin) is getting a screen adaptation as well.

Happy reading! We'll see if any of these adaptations show up in a big way come next year's award season.