The Dark Knight Strikes Again

According to E! Online, in an article I read here, the Dark Knight is set to hit theaters again in January as a "reminder" for all Academy voters. As a huge fan of The Dark Knight (and all things Batman), I have this to say:

Awesome.

Yet, I have to wonder a bit about the decision. Dark Knight should be hitting DVDs well in time to cause a few mad dashes and tramplings around holiday season when stores open before the sun rises. Heath Ledger's performance, though by this point exposed to the world for almost two months, is still quite a hot topic of discussion among cinephiles and pop cult fans alike. I personally think that his Joker is by far one of the best screen villains I've ever seen. I challenge you to name 10 better.

At this point, though, a move like that - "returning" a film to theaters that is still ranking in the top 5 weekend earners in box office data is a bit odd. Sure, it will eventually have to leave theaters. But will it just return weeks later? It's an odd mix of factors at play, I think. Some people who were waiting for the DVD - why would anyone do that? - will probably like it so much they'll pay to see it on the big screen in January. Other people, myself not necessarily left out, might seek out the opportunity to go with friends who weren't around over the summer.

At the end of the day, though, if you asked me, I'd say the move was most about money. Dark Knight is about $78 million from matching Titanic*. (*Due to inflation, DK would have to hit about $900 million in ticket sales to sell the number of tickets Titanic did.) $78 million is a lot of money for most movies. Actually, it's a phenomenal amount of money for a majority of films to make it onto screens in this country. Yet for movies like Dark Knight, Titanic, and anything Star Wars, $78 is an opening day's pay (well, at least a Friday and Saturday). Can it be achieved with another month in theaters in early 2009? Is WB trying to just break Titanic's record? Do we really need a reminder about how good Heath Ledger was? Or does none of that matter?

Will you see it in theaters next year?

Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday

The annual Brooklyn Book Festival takes place on Sunday, September 14th. These guys do a great job rounding up hundreds of vendors, author signings and Q&A events every year. One event of particular interest to screenwriters:

2:00 p.m. PENUltimate Lit: Literature and the Small Screen. Join authors A.M. Homes (The L Word) and Richard Price (The Wire) as they discuss the challenges and opportunities that arise when fiction writers take their talents from page to the small screen.

Participating speakers run the gamut from Walter Mosley to Brian Wood to Thurston Moore. The full event lineup is here.

New Yorker Festival 2008 lineup announced

The New Yorker Festival has announced their 2008 lineup of events, and there are a lot of great ones. These ones have me drooling specifically:

Saturday, October 4th

Writers and Their Subjects: Clint Eastwood and Lillian Ross
1 p.m. Directors Guild of America ($25)

Lynda Barry in conversation with Matt Groening
4 p.m. Festival HQ
Metropolitan Pavilion ($25)

Worst Nightmares Part 1: Horror Movies
With Wes Craven and Hideo Nakata. Moderated by Ben Greenman.
7:30 p.m. IFC Center ($35)

The full lineup is pretty amazing. The events are all a bit pricey and will sell out fast, but definitely worth trying for if you see something you're really digging. Tickets go on sale Friday, September 12th.

Got any unused, unsold manuscripts?

Maybe they can work as an eBook?

About a year ago, there was an item on GalleyCat about authors turning old, unsold manuscripts into free ebooks, with Melanie Lynne Hauser's Jumble Pie cited as a prime example. Hauser emailed yesterday to say that the novel's trackable readership had just passed the 1,300 mark—and, thanks to what she describes as a "lucky accident," more than 60 percent of those readers came this summer. (Not known: How many of those 1,300 downloaders passed the file around to their friends?)

[via GalleyCat]

What are you reading?

I'm stealing an idea from Connie at The Miami Herald and asking a question via the InterGoogle that I often ask people in person: What are you reading now? And, more importantly, how is it?

I'm still tearing through Michael Connelly's library. I'm on my ninth book of his (which, I realized last night, I've read in little over a month), eight of which have been installments in the Harry Bosch detective series. The one I'm reading now, though, Chasing the Dime, isn't part of the series. It tells the story of chemist Henry Pierce, who discovers that his new phone number used to belong to someone else. That someone else being a high-priced escort named Lilly who has gone missing. Things get weirder from there, and Henry finds himself immersed in the seedy world of prostitution and Internet adult entertainment.

At first, I was a little annoyed at the book. See, it was the third book in a three-book omnibus I'd bought. Two of the books were Bosch novels, so I was really looking forward to continuing the adventures of Harry. So, I was a little irked to find this standalone story grouped with two from the series. But, after muddling through the first few chapter, I realized that not only was this a decent mystery in its own right (and also featured a number of previously seen characters from the Bosch series), but also had a few hints and tips on how I could better execute my own crime novel, which has some parallels to Dime, most visibly the notion of the non-detective becoming the hero/detective against his better judgement and out of a desire to help a friend/person in need.

In that respect, Chasing the Dime has been a helpful guide toward getting a sense of how I could make my book work, and how I could make it different and potentially avoid some of the story mistakes my radar picked up while reading the novel. I wouldn't say it's as entertaining as the Bosch books, but that's fine. That can be chalked up to familiarity with the character and the comfort zone that creates. Still, I'd consider reading another Henry Pierce novel. Assuming he doesn't end up dead -- I still have a few more chapters to go.

Sarah Palin: A novelist's view

The L.A. Times book blog, JACKET COPY considers VP candidate Sarah Palin as a character. Worth reading:

As a novelist, I am fascinated by the emergence of Sarah Palin as a character. This lively cross between Annie Oakley and Eva Braun seems to have released Republican chakras to a degree that could be matched only by the resurrection of Ronald Reagan. This is more extraordinary by virtue of her having been an unknown local politician until — what? oh, about five minutes ago. As the nation slouches toward her possible elevation to the second-highest office in the land, we're all taking a closer look at what's gone on in Alaska these past few years.

There's the aerial wolf hunting, the moose burgers, the book banning — excuse me? The book banning? As Jacket Copy reported earlier this week, Palin leaned on the local librarian when she was mayor of Wasilla, urging her to ban certain texts. In other words, we are in danger of going from a nation where the first lady is a former librarian to one where the vice president is a character in "Fahrenheit 451." Clearly, this is what they mean by change you can believe in.

LOST writer Brian K. Vaughan's advice to new writers

I mentioned this in the comments to Suckerman's post about Heinlein...

Brian K. Vaughan (Lost, Y the Last Man) wrote a nice piece on establishing yourself as a writer. The piece isn't very long, but here's my favorite bit:

WRITE MORE, DO OTHER STUFF LESS.

That's it. Everything else is meaningless. You can take all the classes in the world and read every book on the craft out there, but at the end of the day, writing is sorta like dieting. There are plenty of stupid fads out there and charlatans promising quick fixes, but if you want to lose weight, you have to exercise more and eat less. Period. Every writer has 10,000 pages of shit in them, and the only way your writing is going to be any good at all is to work hard and hit 10,001.

I've always admired Vaughan's writing, and not just because he has a very similar background to many of the members here in the Screenwriters League.

On an unrelated note, the AVClub has a great breakdown of movies the turn their audience into voyeurs. Definitely a good read.