Monday 8 March 2010- London

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE

The Ninth Circle by Rising Star Author Alex Bell, Optioned for Movie Rights  

Reelart Media Limited are pleased to announce that Reelart have optioned Movie Rights for The Ninth Circle by Gollancz fantasy author, Alex Bell. Hampshire based Alex Bell is recognised as an up-and-coming young British talent with three novels successfully published to high critical acclaim.

Contracts have been signed to bring the book’s hero Gabriel Antaeus to where he rightly belongs – on the big screen.  With a movie adaptation already underway and directors, leading cast and locations being sought in the UK and Hungary, production is expected to commence September 2010.

Reelart Managing Director, Daniel O’Toole stated, ‘We are thrilled to be working hard, to turn Alex’s first novel into what will undoubtedly be a talked about movie adaptation.  We believe we have found a talented, young British writer and the character of Gabriel Antaeus is one we can see developing into other projects. Obviously we’re very excited to bring this novel to the big screen.’

‘Alex Bell and her novels already have a growing army of fans and we know we can do justice to her work,’ Reelart Producer, Matthew O’Toole commented as contracts were signed.

‘After my initial meeting with Reelart, I knew they were the right people to bring my work to life. It’s always such a pleasure to talk to people who really get the book, and if anyone can successfully bring a faithful version of The Ninth Circle to the big screen, I am sure it is them,’ said Alex Bell.

The Ninth Circle, is Alex Bell’s first novel and begins as our mysterious hero wakes beaten and bloodied on the floor of a Budapest flat with no recall of his past.  His efforts to rediscover his identity are punctuated with cryptic clues, strange visions, terrifying dreams which eventually come together into an epic battle of good and evil and Gabriel asking the question: is it really better the devil you know?

The Ninth Circle takes its place in Reelart’s upcoming production slate with production due to commence September 2010.

—-ENDS—-

Notes to Editors:

For more information on Reelart Media Limited:

www.reelartmedia.com

For more information on Alex Bell:

www.alex-bell.co.uk

For more up to date releases on The Ninth Circle Movie

www.theninthcirclemovie.com

For more information on The Ninth Circle Novel and reviews

http://www.alex-bell.co.uk/books/the-ninth-circle/ 

I can’t add too much more about it at this stage because it’s all top secret, and if I told you I would have to kill you – or send Sam Sykes to kill you – but watch this space . . .

In other news, Lex Trent versus The Gods has also been optioned for film. Lex and his twin brother Lucius are to be played by none other than John and Edward Grimes, otherwise known as Jedward, who, as I have already stated elsewhere, look shockingly like the Lex Trent I see in my head (apart from the hair, obviously):

Nah, I’m only kidding. About Lex, that is. The Ninth Circle/Reelart stuff is all true.

Number One – the Mastodon:

 As you can see, it is both shrivelled and dead. Obviously, therefore, I love it. I found this mastodon whilst heading an archaeological dig in the wild jungles of Peru. Now Seth, as I like to call him, keeps my shrivelled mermaid and shrivelled bigfoot company. There is a fourth member of their little gang, but I will write about him another time.

Number Two – Erin’s New Hat:

This is Erin’s new hat. My Mum recently went on a trip to Marrakech, and she bought this for him in one of the markets there. That’s how cool my Mum is – when she goes on holiday she brings back presents for me, and for my skeleton. And it was perfect timing too because Erin was becoming bored with his Victorian top hat, and had taken to trying to put it on the Siamese, which she dislikes. And an unhappy Siamese makes for an unhappy human. Now, because of the hat, we are all happy, and living together in harmony once again. Soon, Erin will own more hats than I do. I spoil my skeleton almost as much as I spoil my Great Dane. Moose has a hat too. Here she is wearing it on her birthday:

So make that three instances of weirdness.

Oh yes, we are all mad here.

I have been calling the hedgehog Spiky Harold, which has got me thinking about the original Spiky Harold. For those who don’t know, Spiky Harold is a fiendishly difficult retro computer game back from the days when computers didn’t have mice. It’s the first computer game I can remember and, even now, just hearing the name of it gives me that childish excited feeling. Having said that, my brother and I could never get very far on it before poor Harold got killed.

But after Spiky Harold came the Sega. I know 99.999% of gamers will probably deride me for saying so, but I regard the Sega as by far the best games console. These were games that you could just sit down and play without having to spend hours and hours and hours practicing first. The original Sonic, for example – absolutely loved it. Spent many happy hours battling Dr Robotnik and co. But a while back I tried to play a new Sonic races game with my brother on his Playstation 2, and I couldn’t even finish the race. Stupid bloody New Sonic kept running off the edge of a cliff, damn him.

My eight year old cousin got a Wii for Christmas, and when I saw her playing on this recently I was like ‘jeepers!’ It all looks so complicated! A far cry from the pick-up-and-play games of yester-year. And I can’t help but lament the decline of the Sega because for people like me – who are not hard-core gamers but wouldn’t mind whiling away an hour every now and then – we need games we can just plug in and play. Things like old Sonic and the absolutely tremendous Castle of Illusion.

Perhaps the new games have better graphics, and the remote controllers vibrate now and all the rest of it, but I will always prefer the Sega, and I miss that clunky old games console even now. I could actually beat my brother in the occasional Sonic race or Bloody Roar battle back then (which infuriated him, and made me feel tremendously good about myself). Now if I ever try to play a game with him on one of these modern consoles, I get pitifully thrashed within minutes. Seconds, even. If I want to play a computer game now, it’s pretty much a question of tetris or nothin’. And – let’s face it – there’s only so much tetris a person can play before they get the urge to kill someone. So my plan is for the shops to scrap all this PS3/Wii/X-Box nonsense and just bring back the good ol’ Sega. Games ain’t so much fun when you have to spend hours perfecting your technique before you can even start. It was all so much better in my day . . .

Front:

And back:

I am incredibly chuffed with this version of the cover. The stone angels give it a religious look, which I love, and I think it has a fantastic gothic feel to it. I have been very lucky with all of my front covers so far. Law of averages says that at some point I will have to get a cover that I’m not delighted with, but it hasn’t happened yet. When it does, I will, of course, have to be publicly tactful about it, and just say something like ‘this is an . . . interesting front cover’. But, thankfully, that day is not today.

Publicações Europa-América are the publishers for this one, and they have also got the Portuguese rights for Jasmyn as well. I very much hope that when they bring Jasmyn out they do it in a similar style to this one, as I think that would look absolutely stunning.

It seems very odd flicking through a book that I know I wrote, but which I can’t understand because it’s all in a different language. If only I were as multi-lingual as Gabriel – then I could read this book, and any other foreign language edition I receive in the future. Alas, I shall just have to content myself with flicking through it with a big grin on my face.