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Sweet Valley High is Getting A Totally Rad Movie Adaptation

Plus Baron Trump is a character in a 1800s book series and Twitter’s Astro Poets are writing a book

In today’s literary news, the ‘80s are making a comeback (yet again) with a “Sweet Valley High” movie adaptation, a 19th century book series depicts a character named Baron Trump (among other coincidences), and the Twitter Astro Poets scored a book deal.

“Sweet Valley High” is getting a movie adaptation

The ‘80s strike again. After an endless chain of remakes, TV series reboots, the explosion of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” and the controversy surrounding “Ready Player One,” the Hollywood machine will not stop resurrecting the era of mom jeans and mixtapes. This time, Sweet Valley High, the iconic series written by Francine Pascal, is getting a movie adaptation. The 603(!!) novels follow the lives of identical twin sisters Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, who live in Sweet Valley, CA just outside of Los Angeles. The blond twins deal with typical teenage stuff: prom, talent shows, plane crashes, a murderous doppleganger…they managed to cover a lot in the the 20+year series. Deadline reports that Paramount has hired Kirsten Smith, who also worked on classics such as “Legally Blonde” and “10 Things I Hate About You,” and Harper Dill of sitcom “The Mick” to co-write the movie. There is no information yet about the specifics of the adaptation — the time period, the amount of material taken from the books, or whether we’ll find out whatever happened to that vampire Jessica dated one time.

[The Huffington Post/Priscilla Frank]

Nineteenth-century book featuring a “Baron Trump” character has the Internet losing its mind

Apparently, the 19th century was way ahead of its time. The internet is flipping over a series of books from the 1800s that include a character named Baron Trump, among other uncanny similarities. The books, written by Ingersoll Lockwood, have the conspiracy theories rolling in all over the web. In Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey, Baron is a rich young man living in Castle (read: Tower) Trump, until he is inspired to travel to Russia (hmm) by a man named Don (sounds familiar), then finds a portal that allows him to travel to other lands. In Lockwood’s third novel, The Last President, New York City is in tumult over the election of an opposed outsider candidate. “The Fifth Avenue Hotel will be the first to feel the fury of the mob,” the novel writes, mentioning an address in New York City where Trump Tower now stands. “Would the troops be in time to save it?” The series has resurfaced online thanks to Reddit and users quickly began sharing theories about the eerie similarities to the present, such as the belief that the Trump family has been time traveling for years. One filmmaker and Trump supporter is even trying to crowdsource funding to create a fantasy feature film based on the books. Isn’t the internet just fantastic?

[The Huffington Post/ David Moye]

Twitter’s Astro Poets duo is writing a book

Astro Poets, a massively popular Twitter account merging astrology and pop culture, is getting a book deal. The savvy duo behind the hilarious and too-real tweets, Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky, have garnered close to 200,000 followers on the social media platform. They have signed a deal with Random House for a horoscope book sure to be heavy on their notorious wit and psychological insight. Dimitrov and Lasky began tweeting after the election, saying that the world needs as “much magic and cosmic help as we can get in addition to, you know, health care.” In honor of their success, here is a selection of typical tweets on @poetastrologers.