Opening today ... two movies based on books

                                                             

Here's a couple that are new to me 

Lay the Favorite comes out today. As you can see from the poster on the left, the movie stars Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Vince Vaughn. If that's Vince Vaughn on the cover I find him unrecognizable.
Here's what the book is about; not sure how it synchs up with the film.

"Overview

An eye-popping and hilarious joyride through the underworld of sports betting.

Lay the Favorite is the story of Beth Raymer’s years in the high-stakes, high-anxiety world of sports betting—a period that saw the fall of the local bookie and the rise of the freewheeling, unregulated offshore sports book, and with it the elevation of sports betting in popular culture. As the business explodes, Beth rises—from assistant to expert, trusted and seasoned enough to open an offshore booking office in the Caribbean with a few associates, men who leave their families up north to make a quick killing, while donning new tropical personas fueled by abundant drugs and local girlfriends, and who one by one succumb to their vices. They lie, cheat, steal, and run, until Beth is the last man standing.
Raymer brings to life a world that teems with pathos and ecstasy in this wild picaresque that also tells the story of a young woman’s crazy, sexy, most unlikely coming-of-age."

Also opening is Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. That sure sounded like a book title to me when I first read it, but the movie's imdb listing doesn't credit an author. Instead both the director, Donald Rice, and Mary Henely-Magill, are listed as writers of the screenplay. There's nothing, nada about a book. But I had a funny feeling it was a book title ... I mean look at that poster - it reeks chick lit book cover. Check out the movie's description:

"A young woman frets upstairs in her family's country manor on her wedding day, fearful she's about to marry the wrong man. Downstairs, both her fiancé and her former lover grow increasingly anxious."

I decided to google it, only to discover there was a novel Cheerful Weather for the Wedding written by Julia Strachey, a British Indian-born writer who died in 1979. She wrote the book in 1932!

Here's the book's description from Barnes and Noble:

"It is a brisk English March day, and Dolly is getting ready to marry the wrong man. Waylaid by the sulking admirer who lost his chance, an astonishingly oblivious mother bustling around and making a fuss, and her own sinking dread, the bride-to-be struggles to reach the altar.

Dolly knew, as she looked round at the long wedding-veil stretching away forever, and at the women, too, so busy all around her, that something remarkable and upsetting in her life was steadily going forward."

It is clearly the same story. I'm curious as to why she's not credited as the writer - every writer should be given credit for their source material - but perhaps it's just an accidental omission on IMDB.com ... I'll have to check.  Hopefully you can't judge a book by that cover because that one with the young woman reading by the window looks awfully dreary!

Good thing they are doing a new movie tie in version of the book cover eh? I love how they are marketing it with Elizabeth McGovern from Downton Abbey blurb on the cover! Finding this picture makes me feel better, since
they couldn't have done a movie tie in of the novel without crediting the original writer. I'm sure it will be on the credit crawl at the end of the film.

I haven't read either of these books, haven't read any of the reviews of the movies. I just wanted to let you know they're out there somewhere. As you know these indie type films don't get the distribution of the biggies so they may not be in a multiplex near you.