LOS ANGELES, February 1: Four bestselling novels from Nora Roberts will be adapted into original TV movies through a deal announced today between the author, Peter Guber's Mandalay Television and Lifetime Television.

The titles being considered for the four movies include Blue Smoke, Carolina Moon, Montana Sky, The Villa, Brazen Virtue and River's End. Guber will executive produce, alongside Stephanie Germain, whose credits include Ike: Countdown to D-Day for A&E; Lifetime's Gracie's Choice and The Pilot's Wife for CBS.

Trevor Walton, SVP of original movies at Lifetime, noted, "Selling an average of 21 books every minute, Nora's talent is endless and the American public cannot get enough of her work."

Peter Guber, Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group, added, "Building this exciting filmed franchise by combining Lifetime's powerful brand with Nora Roberts, a stratospheric author, will create a compelling entertainment experience."

Roberts has more than 280 million books in print. Since 1999, every book published under her name has hit the New York Times best-seller list.

Mandalay's television credits have included Intensity, a four-hour miniseries based on the best-seller by Dean Koontz, for FOX; and First Daughter, a two-hour TV movie for TBS. Mandalay is headed up by Guber, who was the studio chief at Columbia Pictures in the 1970s and later chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. He founded Mandalay Entertainment in 1995. The studio's releases have included I Know What You Did Last Summer and Donnie Brasco. The company also operates Mandalay Mosaic Television Group, a producer of series and feature entertainment for broadcast and cable and owner of Dick Clark Productions.
(Source: http://www.worldscreen.com/print.php?filename=lifet201.htm)

Well. No offense to Nora Roberts- whom we here at Wordcandy totally view as an American Treasure- but twenty bucks says these are seriously going to suck.

Labels: Movie, Nora Roberts, TV