W Magazine’s “Best Performances of the Year” series is a gallery of glorious WTFness, but this picture of Mark Ruffalo wins the best spot at the museum.

Before his death, lawyers acting for JD Salinger called the book ‘a rip-off, pure and simple’. Photograph: Amy Sancetta/AP

If you really want to hear about it … the chances are you will soon be able to, unless you live in north America. A sequel to JD Salinger’s novel of teenage angst, The Catcher in the Rye, written by an obscure Swedish publisher, is to be issued in most of the world with the reluctant acquiescence of the reclusive author’s estate.

Although the book, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, was briefly published in Britain and Sweden two years ago, lawyers acting for Salinger blocked publication in the US with a court ruling in July 2009, six months before Salinger’s death at the age of 91.

Now, according to Publishers’ Weekly and the Bookseller, agreement has been reached to publish the book, which takes an aged character, who is evidently the protagonist of the original book, Holden Caulfield, on a journey similar to his original odyssey, escaping from an old people’s home back to his old haunts in New York. Echoing the original, it ends with its character, 76-year-old Mr C, standing near a carousel in Central Park.

The book is the work of the Swedish author and publisher Frederik Colting, who originally wrote under a pseudonym, John David California.

When the case came to court, the book was described by Salinger’s lawyers as “a rip-off, pure and simple”, but Colting’s lawyers said it was a parody, not a sequel. In her ruling granting a prohibition, the judge, Deborah Batts, described it as an “infringement … lacking in credibility”.

Click the below image to see it in full resolution on Deviant Art:

via: The Awesomer

Salma Hayek is planning an 8-hour Wicked miniseries

Interesting news about the musical sensation from somewhere over the rainbow. Wicked, the novel and hit musical, is not getting turned into a movie. Instead it’s going to get its own miniseries from Salma Hayek.

Variety is reporting that ABC is interested in adapting the Oz prequel book Wicked into a full-fledged miniseries, and it’s being produced by Salma Hayek’s company Ventanarosa Producs. But, the studio is only interested in adapting the book version of the Wicked Witch of the West and her relationship with Glinda, not the Broadway musical. So, sadly, there won’t probably be any singing, which is a shame.

The original book (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) was penned by Gregory Maguire, and is now getting the screenplay treatment from Erik Jendreson of Band of Brothers. It’s been so long since we had a nice long fantasy miniseries, and we’ve got our fingers crossed for some quality flying monkeys.

Send an email to Meredith, the author of this post, at meredith@io9.com.

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When the iPhone 4 first arrived, the quality of the video immediately became one of the selling points, and we posted a couple pieces about people using the phone to create films. We figured that a well-known filmmaker would eventually use the device to make a film. Here’s one of the first: Paranmanjang (Ups and Downs), a 30-minute “fantasy-horror” short film from Oldboy and Thirst director Park Chan-Wook, who shot the film entirely with the iPhone 4.

Freaking awesome!

Image Credit: Jon Furniss/WireImage.comJames Franco has never been one shy away from a challenge, whether it’s guest-starring on General Hospital or co-hosting the Oscars, but adapting both William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy for the screen appears to be two especially giant-sized steps towards potential disaster. Or, alternatively, towards becoming the next Orson Welles. It’ll be awhile until we know, but in the meantime Franco is moving full steam ahead and he confirms to EW that he hopes to direct film versions of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. If everything goes according to plan, the Faulkner would be first, filming this summer, and then the Blood Meridian in 2012. “I think they go together, though,” Franco told EW. “I think McCarthy is really influenced by Faulkner.”

It’s not like Franco doesn’t have directing experience. The actor has debuted his short films at major film festivals, and he recently wrapped shooting a feature with similarly literary themes, The Broken Tower, about the life of poet Hart Crane. But taking on As I Lay Dying, Faulkner’s 1930 masterpiece about a family transporting their mother’s body to her burial plot, would be a tall order for anyone, especially considering the fact that the novel continually cycles between narrators, including the dead matriarch. “You want to capture the tone, but you can’t work in exactly the same way,” says Franco. “I don’t believe it’ll feel the same if you divide it as rigidly as the book, like titles that say ‘Cash’ and then you’re with Cash. You can slip into the characters’ heads and give them their inner voice for a while, but it has to be more fluid because movies just work differently than books. Movies, in some ways because they deal in images, are more concrete. I want to be loyal to the book — my approach is to always be loyal in a lot a ways — but in order to be loyal I will have to change some things for the movie.” 

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A model of a hot air balloon emblazoned with the face of the Joker Photo: BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics

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Batman Live will have a 100ft-wide, 60ft-deep performance area backed by a giant video wall  Photo: BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics

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A maquette of the Flying Graysons circus set from Batman Live Photo: BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics

By Peter Lyle 8:00AM GMT 03 Jan 2011

Comment

Hollywood screenwriting guidebooks routinely repeat the idea that to have any chance of getting your blockbuster greenlit, you need to be able to distil it to a one-line ‘elevator pitch’: a short sentence that cites a couple of past box office hits and perhaps an inventive location, by way of encapsulating the essence of your new story.

By that standard, Batman Live might be in trouble. The people behind the arena extravaganza, which will have its world premiere in Manchester in July, are snappier and more forthcoming when saying what it isn’t.

‘It’s not Batman on Ice.’ ‘It’s not Batman the Musical.’ ‘It doesn’t have long, discursive scenes – Batman doesn’t lie back and say: “Isn’t that an interesting cloud?”’ By any other measure, not least the track records of the people involved, it looks like a winner.

Hope it’s better than Spiderman