Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn To Work Again With Ben Affleck

Team Gone Girl is reuniting for another dark tale of suspense and danger. Only this time, they’re headed for remake territory, as David Fincher, Ben Affleck and Gillian Flynn will create a new version of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers On A Train.”

The new thriller, currently just called Strangers, is an update of the original story. Flynn will write the script about a film star (Affleck) deep in the middle of an Oscar campaign who needs to hitch a ride when the private plane he’s been using to jet around the country breaks down. He believes his luck has changed when a wealthy stranger offers him a lift to Los Angeles on his own swanky aircraft. Things take a turn for the complicated from there.

Fincher and company are keeping the rest of the details to themselves for now. The 1951 film, adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel, saw Farley Granger playing Guy Haines, a bored tennis pro who meets a stranger on a train (Robert Walker) and concocts a scheme to swap murderous acts with the wealthy socialite psycho in the hopes that they can both get away scot free. Of course, it doesn’t quite work out that way.

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Oh, say it isn’t so…The news from Hollywood is that David Fincher’s movie version of “Gone Girl” will have an ending that differs significantly from that of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel.

Now here’s the truly startling news….Flynn is making the changes herself ….she’s writing the screenplay. She’s given the story “a whole new third act,” an alteration drastic enough that it “shocked” the film’s star, Ben Affleck. Flynn comments…“There was something thrilling about taking this piece of work that I’d spent two years painstakingly putting together, with all its 8 million Lego pieces, take a hammer to it and bash it apart and reassemble it into a movie.”

So….maybe the film version will surprise us all over again. For more book headlines, tune into my show The Book Report.

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A slew of sensational books are heading to the big screen this year. Here’s what to look for during the second half of 2014.

The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard Morais will delight culinary enthusiasts with its delicious French setting. Not only does it star Helen Mirren, but it’s produced by Oprah AND Steven Spielberg. Lois Lowry’s The Giver is finally screen bound, with Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and Taylor Swift. Comedy lovers, Jonathan Tropper’s “This is Where I leave you” is the tale of a guy forced to sit shiva with his astoundingly dysfunctional family. With Jason Bateman and Tina Fey, we’re gonna love it. 2 Gillian Flynn titles are cineplex bound. Dark Places starring Charlize Theron, and Gone Girl with Ben Affleck. December will showcase …Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl? Hmmm….the jury’s out.

Know before you go. Get the literary 411 on my show The Book Report.

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If you’re one of the millions who read Gone Girl, I bet you’re eagerly awaiting the big screen adaptation. Sadly, we have to wait till NEXT October, when the movie, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike is set to release.  Horror fans, the next remake of Frankenstein will star James McAvoy as Victor Von Frankenstein and…holy Hogwarts…. Daniel Radcliffe as Igor. This one will be out in January 2015.

But…never fear…. there’s  a great crop of books making their way to the big screen this fall, including Ender’s Game, The Book Thief, The Wolf of Wall Street, Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, and of course, the next installment of the Hunger Games.

To find out about page to screen happenings, check my website, bookreportradio.com. And, tune into my show The Book Report.