Diana Gabaldon revealed during a talk at the recently-concluded Book Expo that she had just signed the final contract with the Starz network for the long-gestating project to bring her Outlander series (RH/Delacorte) to the TV screen. Shooting will begin in September, she said, and if all goes well, it will begin airing in spring of 2014.

This is probably the reason that the publishing date for the next title in the series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, has been moved from a December publication date to March 25, when it will tie in to the publicity for the STARZ series.

Below is a video of the BEA Book and Author Breakfast during which Gabaldon revealed the news. She is featured along with Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, RH/Knopf, 10/29), Congressman John Lewis (March: Book One, a graphic novel from Top Shelf Productions, 8/13) and Chris Matthews (Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked, Simon & Schuster, 11/12). Gabaldon’s segment  begins just after the 52:00 time stamp.

Gabaldon spoke about the challenge of writing series and her goal to treat each new title as a standalone in a BEA interview:

The BBC is about to begin filming a three-part adaptation of P.D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley  (RH/Knopf), a murder mystery featuring some of Jane Austen’s most beloved characters, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, who began married life in a house named Pemberley.

When the book was released in 2011, USA Today praised it saying, “Countless authors writing in a plethora of genres have tried to re-create Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but James’ new novel is incomparably perfect.”  NPR’s Fresh Air called it “a glorious plum pudding of a whodunit.”

Matthew Rhys plays Darcy, Anna Maxwell Martin is Elizabeth and Matthew Goode is Wickham [Sorry for the earlier mistake -- we said the actors are Americans, but they are all British. Thanks for the corrections!].

Deadline reports that filming starts next month in Yorkshire, with the series expected to begin at the end of the year in the UK (no word yet on when it may appear here).

Philippa Gregory’s novels in The Cousins’ War series, set during Great Britain’s War of the Roses, have been adapted into a ten-part tv series that will premiere on STARZ cable network on Saturday, August 10th at 9pm ET/PT. Titled The White Queen, the BBC/STARZ production is actually based on the first three books, which are being released as trade paperback tie-ins in early July by S&S/Touchstone.

The White Queen,9781476735481

The Red Queen, 9781476746302

Lady of the Rivers, 9781476746319

It stars Max Irons (son of Jeremy Irons, he appeared in the movie Red Riding Hood), Amanda Hale (The Crimson Petal & The White), James Frain (The Tudors). Newcomer Rebecca Ferguson plays the Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen. Amanda Hale is Margaret Beufort, the Red Queen and Faye Marsay is Anne Neville, the Lady of the Rivers. Gregory is an executive producer on the project.

The two teasers give quite different impressions of what to expect (see if you can guess which is the STARZ promo and which the BBC, without looking at the credits).

First:

Second:

The next book in the series, The White Princess, (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio) will be published on July 23.

Images of Michael Douglas as  Liberace in the HBO film, Behind the Candelabra, seem to be everywhere; at the Cannes Film Festival where it premiered yesterday, on magazine covers and in reviews (even in BusinessWeek). American audiences will get their first look at the movie on HBO on May 26.

Yesterday, Terry Gross interviewed the director, Steven Soderbergh on NPR’s Fresh Air. He says he had long wanted to do a movie about Liberace, but it wasn’t until a friend recommended the 1988 book Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace, by the pianist’s lover, Scott Thorson (played by Matt Damon) that he was able to go forward. “When I read that book, it sort of solved all my problems. It gave me a specific time period to deal with; there was the arc of the relationship between the two of them to give me a structure. And that’s when things really started to move.”

Tantor Media re-released the out-of-print title recently, with a new afterword by Thorson, as part of the launch of their new book imprint.  Tantor has also released an audio version, narrated by Peter Berkrot (sample here, about the media circus around Liberace’s death of AIDs). An interview with Thorson is featured on Tantor’s web site. He says he hasn’t seen the movie and will see it as everyone else does when it debuts this Sunday on HBO.

At their Upfront Presentations yesterday, ABC debuted a trailer for Once Upon A Time In Wonderland, a spinoff of the Once Upon a Time series. It is scheduled to begin this fall on Thursdays at 8 p.m. (Once Upon a Time begins its third season on Sundays).

This is a bit confusing since rival network NBC greenlighted a pilot in early January for another series also loosely based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, called, Wonderland. Even “Curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice would say, NBC acquired that project from ABC Studios. In February, NBC announced that it was being pushed back, “because of the scale and complexity of the production, including visual effects” and would be filmed this summer for a possible mid-season pickup.

As enjoyable as rival Alice series might be, we are dubious that the NBC project will come to pass.

Below is the trailer for the ABC series:

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a spinoff of the The Avengers film, will debut as a series on ABC this fall on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Director Joss Whedon presented the trailer yesterday to media and advertisers gathered in New York for the network’s Upfront Prsentations.

In October, Marvel will  release S.H.I.E.L.D.: Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. illus. by Paul Neary, text by Bob Harras. The publisher’s sell lines suggest anticipating “an increase in demand for S.H.I.E.L.D. product, similar to what happened to the Infinity Gauntlet coming out of the Avengers film.” and notes, this is “one of the few classic S.H.I.E.L.D. series we will have on hand for the [TV] launch.”

Downton Abbey returns to PBS for an eight-week run, beginning January 5, 2014.

American fans will again be frustrated as spoilers emerge from the UK where the series debuts in the fall.

As we wrote earlier, both Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith will return to the show. However, Siobhan Finneran, who played the conniving lady’s maid O’Brien, will not be back.

The author of the best selling Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway; Tantor Media), Countess Fiona Carnarvon, is publishing a new book about Highclere Castle this fall, featuring Lady Almina’s successor, Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway).

Of the 5 pilots based on books that NBC had green lighted, only About a Boy, is definitely on the fall schedule (although it may be based more on the movie, starring Hugh Grant, than the book by Nick Hornby). It was included in the upfront presentations to media and advertisers on Monday. Starring Minnie Driver and David Walton (New Girl), the half-hour show will air on the midseason schedule, Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

The other projects are either delayed or cancelled:

Girlfriend in a Coma – based on Douglas Coupland’s 1998 novel (HarperCollins). Christina Ricci has walked away from the lead, delaying the project.

I Am Victor – based on Jo Nesbo’s forthcoming, but not yet scheduled, book, was not mentioned in the upfront presentations, so may have been rejected.

The Sixth Gun –  based on the Oni Press graphic novel, a supernatural Western series that follows the story of six mythical guns, the sixth being the most powerful and dangerous –  Rejected

Wonderland – NBC – in which a girl named Clara wages war in Wonderland against an evil Queen once known as Alice – Production pushed back due to cost.

One of the new shows on the fall schedule is Dracula, but it appears to bear only passing acquaintance with Bram Stoker’s book. The hour-long show will air this fall on Fridays at 10 p.m.
 

Among the new series that FOX just announced for its fall lineup, is a loose adaptation of a classic, about a captain from the Revolutionary War named Ichabod who lands in the present day via a time warp and becomes a detective. The trailer for Sleepy Hollow, scheduled for  Monday nights, has just been released.

FOX announced last week that it is passing on its other possible series based on a book, the YA dystopian novel by Lauren Oliver, Delirium.

Official Web site: Fox.com/Sleepy-Hollow

USA Today’s headline, “Stephen King’s 11/22/63 headed to TV,” makes it sound like a a done deal, but the Deadline story it’s based on is less definitive, stating that rights to the novel are being negotiated and that they “hear” the plan is to turn it into ” a TV series or miniseries, likely for cable.”

What is certain is that a series based on another King novel, Under the Dome, begins on CBS on June 24.

The cable channel FX’s adaptation of the first novel in Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s vampire trilogy, The Strain, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2009) now has a lead, Corey Stoll (who played a character in the Netflix original series, House of Cards).

Del Toro will direct the pilot. According to Deadline, the network is likely to pick it up as a series.

The next project from the creator of the hit cable series Weeds, Jenji Kohan, is an original series for Netflix, Orange Is the New Black, adapted from Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir (Norton). Netflix just announced that all thirteen episodes will be released on July 11.

Netflix recently began developing their own programs, in an effort to attract and retain subscribers. The first two, House Of Cards (February) and Hemlock Grove (April) were also based on books.

Actress Taylor Schilling stars as Piper, who was incarcerated for 13 months in the Danbury Federal Prison in Connecticut. A Smith college graduate, just beginning her career, she seemed an unlikely candidate for prison, until a ten-year-old drug trafficking charge caught up with her.

At the time of publication, USA Today said the book “transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you. You’d expect bad behavior in prison. But it’s the moments of joy, friendship and kindness that the author experienced that make Orange so moving and lovely.”

The next season of the popular British series, Downton Abbey is currently in production. The series’ first black actor has just joined the cast. Gary Carr will play jazz singer Jack Ross, reports the UK’s Independent. A slide show of the other new additions, gives hints about the upcoming story lines (there’s at least one new love interest for Lady Mary).

Among the returning cast members are audience favorites, Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith. However, Siobhan Finneran, who played the conniving lady’s maid O’Brien, will not be back.

The author of the best selling Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway; Tantor Media), Countess Fiona Carnarvon, is publishing a new book about Highclere Castle this fall, featuring Lady Almina’s successor, Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway).

Lady Carnarvon, her home and her previous book were featured on CBS Sunday Morning earlier this year.

Last year, after many attempts to bring Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series to the screen, Sony Pictures TV acquired the rights according to Deadline.

Now, nearly a year later, Deadline writes that the project is “slowly inching to the screen” as a the producers have opened a “writers room” for four writers who will be working on the adaptation.

The eighth installment of the series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, (RH/Delacorte) is coming in December. Gabaldon answered questions about the book earlier this month on Entertainment Weekly‘s “Shelf Life” blog.

Before it was published in August of 2011, Tom Perrotta’s novel The Leftovers, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio) was acquired by HBO for a possible series.

Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) has just been named as director and shooting is expected to begin in June for a possible 2014 premiere, according to New York Magazine’s culture blog, “Vulture.” Co-writing the script with Perrotta is Damon Lindelof, who was a writer and producer for Lost. In an interview about the project last year, Lindelof indicated that the series would go beyond the book, saying it “probably only has enough content for two or three episodes.”