Most Disappointing Movie Adaptations

The Golden Compass has been named the most disappointing movie adaptation by Entertainment Weekly.

The film, based on Philip Pullman’s fantasy novel Northern Lights, topped a list of 23 movies that didn’t match up to their parent books.

Ron Howard’s version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code was placed second, the US remake of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch came third, Memoirs of a Geisha, based on Arthur Golden’s bestseller was fourth, and the 2005 Ray Bradbury adaptation A Sound of Thunder rounded out the top five.

Sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes and Brian De Palma’s 1990 take on Tom Wolfe’s acclaimed novel Bonfire of the Vanities also featured on the list.

The Golden Compass was a relative hit on its initial release, grossing $370 million at the worldwide box office with a production budget of $180 million. However, the film received a low 42% critical approval on the reviews rating website Rotten Tomatoes and was met with a mixed reaction from Pullman fans.

Ewan McGregor in talks for ‘Angels and Demons’

Ewan McGregor is in negotiations to join the cast of Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code prequel Angels & Demons.Based on Dan Brown’s bestselling novel, the film centres on Tom Hanks’s Robert Langdon as he tries to stop an Illuminati plot to destroy the Vatican.

McGregor is in talks to take on the role of a Catholic Church insider who aids Langdon.

Ayelet Zurer has already been cast as the female lead.

Ron Howard will direct from Akiva Goldsman’s screenplay for a May 15, 2009 release.

‘The Oxford Murders’ - International Movie Trailer

So, in theory, the trailer for The Oxford Murders hit the web a few months ago; but unless you were fluent in Spanish, there was not a lot you were going to get out of it. Stale Popcorn has finally gotten their hands on the international trailer, and now we actually get a sense of what the hell is going on. The Oxford Murders is based on the novel of the same name by Argentinian author Guillermo Martínez. The book was published in 2003, and was a best-seller that went on to be published into over fifteen languages.

The Oxford Murders stars John Hurt and Elijah Wood as a professor and a graduate student who become involved in solving a series of gruesome murders at the legendary university. Through the course of their investigations, they discover that the murderer is committing his crimes on principles of mathematical theories. So of course, the only way to stop the murders is to figure out the ‘equations’ before the killer strikes again. I guess you could consider it kind of like The Da Vinci Code, but with way more trigonometry. Read the rest of this entry