Increasing Economic Ties Between Books and Films

Julie Bosman in the New York Times wrote an article a little while ago about a deal between Simon & Schuster and the Gotham Group, in which the former will enjoy greater involvement in and revenue from films and other ancillary products derived from its books. The flipside is that S&S will consider and even accept unwritten books based on their cinematic and marketing potential (providing a strong market position for Gotham). The deal will be tested out on a young adult series written by David O. Russell, director of I HEART Huckabees, Three Kings, and the upcoming political comedy Nailed, but the article also discusses the recent film adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles (seen below) as a prototype of the collaborative process. It is up to you whether you see this as increased synergy between publishers and film producers or the corruption of literature and the creative process by marketing studies and box office sales, but I suspect that in many cases it represents the future of children’s media.