Celestial Timepiece

A Hollywood film based on Joyce Carol Oates’s novella Rape: A Love Story is scheduled to begin shooting in June. The film will star Samuel L. Jackson, Maria Bello, and Abigail Breslin; be written by John Mankiewicz, and directed by Harold Becker (who directed George C. Scott, Sean Penn, and Tom Cruise in “Taps”; and Al Pacino in “Sea of Love” and “City Hall”). [Update: Jackson is out, Nicolas Cage is in.]

Ellen Datlow’s new anthology, Lovecraft Unbound (October 2009), will include the Joyce Carol Oates story, “Commencement,” originally published in Al Sarrantonio‘s 2001 anthology, Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction.

Zombie, a play adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’s 1995 novel, begins a six-week run at The Studio at Theatre Row. Written by, and starring Bill Connington, the play premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival. Zombie runs from February 18 through March 29.