Coming Soon To Theatres Waaaaay Sooner Than Expected

So, I'm watching The Good Shepard (which really wasn't that good) the other day, and I saw a trailer for something quite surprising. I mean, I knew this movie was coming out, but I guess I didn't realize that it was finished and only two months away from release.

The movie? Why, it's Hannibal Rising, the movie adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. It's not that I'm surprised this book has become a movie, as all Hannibal Lecter properties are always hot, and all of Harris' previous books (a whopping four) have been made into movies. What surprises me is that the movie is coming out in February, and the book came out in December, like three weeks ago. (There's even a promo for the book at the end of the trailer.)

In order for any of this to work, the book has to have been complete for quite some time, as it takes at least six months to make a movie from start to finish. What's even odder is that Harris also wrote the screenplay for the movie, which means he must have written the book and screenplay almost simultaneously. (This is the only logical way for this to work, as any other screenwriter would have had to read the entire book in draft form and then cranked out a screenplay in about five minutes.) By whatever means, I think this is probably the fastest turnaround in history.

What it all comes down to is I've got about a month and a half to read the book before I see the movie. Hopefully, Harris chose to faithfully adapt his own book, and not bitchify it like the screenwriters of Hannibal did to that book. I'm guessing he chose correctly.

Just as a sidenote, I'll also mention I saw a preview for a Mark Walberg movie called Shooter, which appears to be a movie version of the first season of 24. No word on whether or not Marky Mark will have an annoying wife and child to chase around.