Welcome to my blog...

Here's where you will find the latest on what's going on with my books and the movie. It's also a great place to ask questions, where I recommend other books, and post different things bouncing around in my head. Look me up on Facebook and if you want to buy, signed, discounted, copies of my books, head over to http://www.ryannwattersbooks.com/.







Tuesday, November 22, 2011

CHRISTMAS SALE - Deepest Discount Ever While Supplies Last!





In anticipation of a re-release of books 1 and 2 in the Ryann Watters series in paperback, I am having a BLOWOUT Christmas sale of the remaining inventory of the First Edition Hard Cover books. You can get books 1 and 2 for ONLY $5 each. I know that's crazy low since they retail for $17.99 and $19.99 each.



To get them at this price you need to put in the SPECIAL COUPON CODE: "christmas2011" at www.ryannwatters.com (click on the "store" stone)



Pick up a set for friends or relatives for Christmas or buy a set to donate to your church or school library. I was overwhelmed with the number of orders coming in after the announcement and had to enlist the help of my daughter and son to help pack and ship. Order soon while supplies last. Pass the code along to your friends via facebook and e-mail.



All books are signed and they come with a special full color, glossy bookmark. Have a Merry Christmas!

Eric

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Getting close to a BIG announcement...


I know it's been quite awhile since I've posted on my book series and the movie project, so I wanted to give a small update, which I am hoping becomes a major announcement before Thanksgiving.

If you've been following the progress, the movie is still on with Gold Pictures, which has completed scripts for books 1 and 2. The casting director has been hard at work and while I'm not at liberty to divulge the 3 teen actors for Ryann, Terell, and Drake,(you obviously know that Taylor Boswell is playing Liddy), I can say that we've signed the actor for Terell and it's someone you will recognize from the Disney channel and another popular show on TV. Ryann and Drake are being narrowed down as we speak.

The budget for the two films is approximately $3 million each, so that it a big jump from the previous budget and in line with other faith-based movies that have done well at theatres. Speaking of which, "Courageous" was great ($2 million budget and has grossed $27 million so far at the box office). If you haven't seen it yet, make a point to do so or at the very least rent it or buy it when it comes out on DVD. *** Warning: there are numerous scenes where you will have uncontrollable laughter and others where you will need the kleenax. ***

Yes, that's me in the fox mask as the character Griffon from "Ryann Watters and the King's Sword." In the first attempt to film the movie the plan was to have real life acting in Aeliana versus the new version where it will be animation. So this was the hollywood mask for that role.

I have been getting lots of e-mails asking when book 3 will be published. I'm still working on the book but it was put on hold with the movies. I can tell you that it is action packed and very fun. My agent is going to be working on a contract with a new and bigger publisher after the annoucement of the movies comes out. The plan is to do some rewrites for books one and two and have a new publisher bring them out in paperback in conjunction with the movies and get a contract for books three and four. I promise it will be worth the wait.

Thanks for your prayers for the funding of the films, actors that are cast, and the filming to be on schedule for April of 2012.
Be blessed,
Eric

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Great News on Faith Based Movies - recently in Forbes Magazine

Family Friendly Movies Make Big Money: Hollywood Noticing By Paul Jankowski

Movieguide, which has been analyzing how movie content compares with its cash intake since 1991, has found repeatedly that family-oriented movies make more money, while the movies with higher instances of sex and violence do not fare nearly as well.

The overwhelming success of movies like Passion of the Christ and The Blind Side, with their overtly Christian themes, stunned a lot of filmmakers and movie critics. Other faith-prevalent, recent releases such as Soul Surfer, with box office receipts of $43 million so far, are also getting a lot of attention. And while such outright portrayal of faith still is by no means common, more and more movies are sneaking faith-based messaging and values into films.

The family-friendly film, “Dolphin Tale” rose to first place in its second weekend of release, taking in $13.9 million at theaters in the U.S. and Canada for Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. studio.

The film unseated the 3-D re-release of “The Lion King,” which ranked No. 1 for the prior two weekends, and edged out four new movies, researcher Hollywood.com Box-Office reported.

“Family films are a hot commodity right now, and this demonstrates that,” Jeff Bock, a film analyst for Exhibitor Relations in Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg Business Week.

According to Movieguide, the number of movies that include at least a little Christian content has increased 455 percent from 27 in 1991 to more than 150 movies in 2009.[2]

This past weekend, another faith-based movie stunned the industry with a #4 box office ranking. COURAGEOUS, the #1 new movie of the weekend opened against movies with three times as many screens for a total box office of $9 million.

“Sony picked this up wisely, and this film had a great grass-roots marketing campaign,” Bock said. “It’s amazing when a faith-based film does that much money.”

The Hollywood press was surprised:

Box Office Mojo
“Made outside of Hollywood without any major stars, Courageous managed to fly under most radars (including my own) until very recently. It’s unfair to ignore the vast majority of church-going Americans for whom typical Hollywood fare isn’t of great interest, though, and Sherwood Pictures has impressively found a way to mobilize this subset of the population.”

I had to comment on “subset of the population.” According to a Pew study, roughly 74% of Americans identify themselves as Christian; hardly a “subset”.

Time
Like the Christian-themed Soul Surfer, the Kendrick’s holy-cop film (with a $1-million budget) was pitched to the faithful, who came out fervently this weekend and gave it an A-plus CinemaScore. Opening in just 1,161 theaters, Courageous had the top per-screen average of any movie in the top 25. Even an agnostic would call that heavenly.”

Finding family-friendly content is tough. Many parents rely on word of mouth while others use movie reviews and ratings to find what’s best for them. As a result, a host of online sources have popped up that rate movies based on their family friendliness.

Christian-based and sometimes controversial, Focus on the Family, reviews movies online for things like sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, and other “negative elements.” Their reviews are very detailed and even mentioned a cartoon character’s cleavage and tanks of “some kind of strong drink” in their review of Disney’s Tangled animated movie. I’d love to meet the guy that writes these reviews.

Kids-in-mind.com rates movies based on their levels of sex, violence, and profanity, with notes on specific questions kids might ask after seeing a movie, prevalence of things like substance abuse, and the kind of message a movie sends. Fandango also offers up its picks of the best family-friendly flicks and keeps a calendar of upcoming movies for kids.

I personally don’t rely on these websites to determine what’s right for my kids. And yes, the older ones have seen Twilight and read all of the Harry Potter books, twice. But I need to stress that word of mouth is incredibly powerful in the Heartland, especially when spoken by influencers like a values-based website, friends and members of our extended family.

Regardless of how Heartlander’s decide what to see, the box office results are proof that family-friendly movies ring the cash register and that’s the only sound Hollywood wants to hear.




Friday, July 22, 2011

Scripts for books 1 and 2 Finalized!



This is the prequel to the long awaited update! I know, I know, you want the final details and so do I, but we'll have to wait just a wee bit longer. All I can say for now is that the adaptation of "King's Sword" and "Shield of Faith" are completed, the presentation packages are done and the casting director is in full gear. My hope and prayer is that our first choices for Ryann and Terell come through over the next few weeks so that filming can begin in Mount Dora, Florida in October 2011.




In case you haven't followed some of the previous blog posts, the original project was picked up by Gold Pictures, in Hollywood, CA, and the budget has increased from $800,000 to $4,000,000. Award winning director, Jenni Gold, will be working with Jeff Maynard, who has over 30 film production credits.





Jeff and Jenni came up with a plan to shoot both movies simultaneously and do so in a cost-effective manner. The live action scenes will be filmed in Mount Dora; however, the fantasy scenes in Aeliana will be in animation with voiceovers by various actors, singers, and musicians. Jeff has worked on another youth fantasy movie, "Arthur and the Invisibles," in which a the characters changed into animation as they moved from the real world to the fantasy world (in that case, underground). By filming this way, all the scenes can be filmed for both movies as if they were one, while the animation company works on the rest.


Keep the efforts of all those involved currently and those who are being approached to be a part of the cast, crew and support, in your prayers and I hope to have a BIG update in the coming weeks. Eric


Thursday, April 7, 2011

Surprise Choice to play Lord Ekron!





In a surprise choice, it is rumored that Isaac C. Singleton Jr., will play the role of Lord Ekron, in "Ryann Watters and the King's Sword." http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0802280/

Fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean will recognize him as one of the pirates, but he has also had roles in "Anger Management," "Planet of the Apes," and "Galaxy Quest." His extensive acting career dates back to 1997.


Isaac is a big dude... and you can tell from one of his pics from Pirates that he can definately play an intimidating role as the evil Lord Ekron.

















I have been in discussions with the Producer and Director in regards to the roles of Ryann and Terell, as well as the the voices for the animal characters and all I can say at this point is that if we can get half of our dream list, it will be awesome.


I'm looking forward to getting the names out to you, but the wait is what builds the suspense :) Eric

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Ryann Watters as a class project Diorama!


I love to see my book read and used in schools. My hope is that through the process of the movie and new book publisher, the Ryann Watter's series will get on the Accelerated Reader (AR) list. Some times that is the only way kids will pick up a book.

A picture of Olivia's diorama, that she completed as part of an overall book report project was submited to me the other day. As you can see, she was very creative in showing one of the scenes when Ryann travels through Lake Dora, into Aeliana. When I looked more closely, I also noticed a picture of me on top of the box.

Great job, Olivia, and thanks for sharing! If you're a parent and your child chooses to use one of my books for a class project, please let me know and we'll post it here!

Eric

Friday, March 11, 2011

Ryann Watters and the King's Sword is officially up on IMDb


IMDb stands for "Internet Movie Database," and is the officially repository for information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. The site was launched in 1990 and acquired by Amazon.com in 1998.

Ryann Watters and the King's Sword is now listed here: in pre-production.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1858527/

Screen writer, Samuel W. Reed and director Jenni Gold, are busy revising the script. Sam will be adapting, Ryann Watters and the Shield of Faith, into a script next. A Casting Director in onboard with the project and as names are added to the cast, they will be update on IMDb.


One item of note on Producer, Jeff Maynard's credentials on IMDb, is credit as Executive in Charge of Post-production for recent Academy Award winning, The King's Speech. Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

EJR

Friday, March 4, 2011

Great News for Ryann Watters and the King's Sword co-star Taylor Boswell


Film Works Entertainment has acquired the Worldwide Rights to the family feature film "Wind Jammers." Starring Justice Von Maur & Taylor Boswell.
Set in the Bahamas, this funny and uplifting family film follows 16 year-old Justice as she overcomes racial prejudice and brings change to her community - all while having the time of her life learning to sail! Uprooted from her everyday life in Chicago, Justice reluctantly moves with her Dad to the Bahamas when his job is relocated. In an effort to fit into their new life her Dad joins the local 'members-only' yacht club, only to soon realize that the fact that Justice is of mixed race doesn't go down too well with the founding members of the club.
If that's not bad enough Justice finds even more resistance when she begins club sponsored sailing lessons and the founding members conspire to get both Justice and her Dad kicked out of the yacht club.When Justice meets a handsome young yachtsman and fellow club member, the pair grow close and together they decide that the stuffy yacht club is not going to stop them from doing what they love...and to prove it, both enter into the annual yacht race, previously open to all residents of the island but is now a strict 'members-only' affair. Come race day, Justice is forced to make decisions that will not only affect the outcome of the race but the every-day lives of everybody on the island.Fun for the whole family, this charming film will sail its way into your hearts and show you that if you believe in your dreams, you can overcome any of life's obstacles!
Wind Jammers is the debut feature film of Producer/Writer Ric von Maur and was produced in conjunction with New York city based Rosetta Films. Von Maur says, "We are all very excited! We worked very hard on this movie and are delighted that FilmWorks will distribute it."
After finishing the script with two other writers, Elliot Lowenstien and Michael Ray Brown, on Maur tapped veteran Bahamian Filmmaker Kareem Mortimer to Co-Direct. Mortimer says, "It was a really fun script. I am proud to have been apart of it and really glad that it will get a worldwide audience."

Friday, February 18, 2011

THE LONG AWAITED NEWS...

"Ryann Watters and the King's Sword" gets a BIG upgrade!

Many of you have been asking, "what's going on with the movie?" and I am happy to say that I can now fill you in on some very exciting news. A year ago, I had no idea how the movie business worked and while I will not say that I am an authority on the topic now, I have had quite an education over the past nine months. If you've followed this project from the beginning, you know that it started out as a very low budget film. We realized that film was not reaching it's full potential and so some hard decisions had to be made. Thanks to a lot of Godly people who believe in the message of the movie and a great deal of prayer, a new direction was sought. And God has blessed the Ryann Watters films! That is right I said films. We are starting over with a 2 picture deal with a Hollywood production company at the helm.

Gold Pictures is located on the Universal Studios lot, in Hollywood, CA. Jeff Maynard will produce and award winning Directors Guild of America, Director Jenni Gold will direct. Their plan is to convert book 2 (Ryann Watters and the Shield of Faith) to a screenplay and film both movies at the same time! They will film the practical for books one and two, simultaneously and the fantasy sections of the movie will be done in animation. Jeff is an independent producer who spent the past five years working on over 35 major studio feature films for, The Weinstein Company (TWC) and Dimension Films, where he was the Senior Vice President of World Wide Post Production and worked on animation films such as:

Hoodwinked http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3YfG7P9VHE and

Arthur and the Invisibles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0XOsRFJ9EA (a real life to animation movie along he same lines as their proposal for Ryann Watters).

They have connections with the animation groups, from the above movies and others.

Other key points:
Jenni Gold has asked Taylor Boswell to reprise her role as Liddy.

Many of the voices for the animation characters in Aeliana will be name actors/musicians familar to viewers.

Both Jeff and Jenni are Christians and are very excited about doing this project. Jeff recently left TWC and wouldn't have been available to do a project of this size just a short time ago.
There are no coincidences, or as my daughter likes to tell me, "coincidences are God acting anonymously."

As things progress , I will keep you posted. Until them, I am working on book three... but that's another post!

Saturday, February 5, 2011

MAJOR ANNOUCEMENT COMING THIS WEEK!


I know it's been awhile since I posted concerning my books, the movie, my life, etc. Well, I wanted to let you know that at the end of next week there will be a major announcement concerning EVERYTHING!


There are still a few things to finalize, but I think you will be pleased with what you read. So be sure and stop back in next Friday, Feb. 11th, to get the scoop.


Eric

High School student, Jason Derfuss films a summary video of book 1