Prequel

EXCLUSIVE: Could we be in for a return trip to the Overlook Hotel? Warner Bros.is quietly exploring the possibility of a prequel to “The Shining,” the 1980 Stanley Kubrick chillfest that many fans regard as the scariest movie of all time. The studio has solicited the involvement of Hollywood writer-producer Laeta Kalogridis and her partners Bradley Fischer and James Vanderbilt to craft a new take as producers, according to a person familiar with the project who was not authorized to talk about it publicly.

NBC sent out five episodes of its "Silence of the Lambs" prequel "Hannibal," and although the reasons to stop watching (when in doubt, impale a woman!) too often outweighed the reasons to continue (Hugh Dancy, tracked by a dangerous dream deer), I swallowed my bile and soldiered on. And indeed, Episode 5 proved an epiphany. No spoilers here, but it costars Eddie Izzard, whose natural gift for twinkling malice threw everything into perspective. The problem with "Hannibal" is not the graphic violence or the absurd back-story tweaks - Dancy's Will Graham is no longer just a super-great FBI profiler with a photographic memory, he's a shivering, night-sweating, natural-born empath, whatever the heck that is - or even the fact that it is rather late to a very crowded serial-killer crime scene.

An 800-word Harry Potter prequel is one of 13 card-sized works to be sold at a charity auction in London. Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd. says the cream-colored A5 papers -- each slightly bigger than a postcard -- were distributed to 13 authors and illustrators, including the boy wizard's creator J.K. Rowling, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing and playwright Tom Stoppard. Rowling used both sides of her card to handwrite a prequel to her seven-book Harry Potter saga, while Lessing penned a story about the power of reading.

When, in her famous essay "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf conjured the tragically compelling possibility of Shakespeare's sister, a new sort of narrative was born - the reclamation of female characters who previously lurked at the edges of epic tales. Queens and consorts, mothers and parlor maids have all gotten their due in retellings of famous works, from the Bible to the tales of Sherlock Holmes. And now here's Mama Bates. The mother of cinematic serial killer Norman Bates is among the most famous off-stage characters in dramatic history.

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict A novel Trenton Lee Stewart Little, Brown: 470 pp., $17.99, ages 8 and up Nicholas Benedict is best known to readers as a kindly father figure in Trenton Lee Stewart's bestselling "Mysterious Benedict Society" series. In the author's new prequel, fans finally get the back story on the narcoleptic genius, long before he placed the newspaper ad that sought four gifted orphans to help him save the world. Set decades earlier in the same rural locale, the books' namesake is just 9 years old in "The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict.

In the opening shot of the new video game Halo Reach, a helmet with a shattered visor lies alone on the surface of a barren alien planet. It's a solemn vision signifying that unlike the previous five Halo games, this isn't a story of victory and triumph. As a prequel to 2001's original Halo, Reach tells the story of a critical defeat that leaves humanity on the verge of being conquered by an alien alliance known as the Covenant. Sacrifice and defeat aren't typical in the world of video games, in which it's most common to end a story by giving players a sense of accomplishment while still leaving threads open for sequels, as every previous Halo title has done.

In the article, Harris' novel "The Silence of the Lambs" was called "sort of a prequel to the book that inspired" the film "Manhunter." In truth, "Red Dragon" was written before "Lambs," and all events in both "Red Dragon" and "Manhunter" take place chronologically before the events in "Lambs." If anything, "Lambs" is a sequel of sorts. SUSANNAH JOHNSON Pasadena The term prequel was inserted by error during editing.

The last time "24's" hero Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) was seen -- in the fourth season finale -- he was presumed dead by most of the people in his life and literally walking off into the sunset to begin his life as a fugitive. With the fifth season premiere still a month away, fans can learn what Jack's life on the road has been like on a DVD of the show's fourth season, which has a prequel containing material that will never air on television.

Fess Parker, whose star-making portrayal of frontiersman Davy Crockett on television in the mid-1950s made him a hero to millions of young baby boomers and spurred a nationwide run on coonskin caps, died Thursday. He was 85. Parker, who played another pioneer American hero on television's "Daniel Boone" in the 1960s before becoming a successful Santa Barbara hotel developer and Santa Ynez Valley winery owner, died of complications from old age at his home near the winery, said family spokeswoman Sao Anash.

"Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" is a prequel born of adversity. That's the way Lucy Lawless describes the six-episode series that begins Friday night on Starz. In it, Lawless will reprise her role as the scheming Lucretia with John Hannah returning as her husband, Batiatus, providing a back story to last year's surprise hit, "Spartacus: Blood and Sand. " The prequel was dreamed up at the last minute as a way to bide time after Spartacus himself ? actor Andy Whitfield ? was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

It's a clash worthy of a pair of almighty witches. The Walt Disney Co. struck it rich this past weekend with its "Wizard of Oz" prequel "Oz the Great and Powerful," selling $80.3 million in tickets domestically, which put it on track to become the most successful movie release of 2013 thus far. But far from capping a three-year, $235-million production effort, the movie is shaping up to be the first shot in a battle between Disney and its...

Sometimes sweet, sometimes scary, sometimes sour, "Oz the Great and Powerful" is a film that doesn't know its own mind. A partially effective jumble whose elements clash rather than cohere, this solid but not spectacular effort stubbornly refuses to catch fire until it's almost too late. As directed by Sam Raimi, who departed from his horror film roots ("The Evil Dead") to turn out the high-grossing, family-friendly "Spider-Man" trilogy, "Oz" exhibits some of the same tonal duality that marks its maker's career.

Barely a mile from where James Franco, the wizard in Disney's new "Oz: The Great and Powerful," was recently giving interviews sat a billboard touting a middle-school stage production. " 'The Wizard of Oz' is coming!" it proclaimed, an endearing promotion that the master shyster himself might appreciate. Down the street, some of Hollywood's top actors were talking up their $200 million plus production of "Oz," but inside these halls pre-adolescent cowardly lions and scarecrows were dutifully rehearsing their numbers.

NEW YORK - For all her designer clothes and lavish amounts of closet space, Carrie Bradshaw always sorely lacked one thing: a back story. Over the course of "Sex and the City's" six seasons, it often seemed as if Carrie had been hatched in a lab on the Upper East Side - and that was precisely the point. Carrie was the princess in the contemporary fairy tale of "Sex and the City," and wondering whether she had any family or friends before age 30 was a little like asking how she managed to pay for all those Jimmy Choos on a journalist's salary.

Movie theaters posted their worst attendance since 1994 last year, but Hollywood is poised for a big comeback - with the help of a secret agent, a sullen vampire and a hairy-footed hobbit. Domestic ticket sales are already up by 3% compared with the same period last year, and a bumper crop of strong films this holiday season - including movies that will appeal to both popular and discerning tastes - could push annual box office receipts above $11 billion for the first time. A strong finish to the year could ease the uncertainty gripping an industry under pressure to cut costs and boost profits, especially as revenue dwindles from once-reliable DVD sales and as more fans turn to video-on-demand and streaming to catch the latest movies.

What do many young-adult bestsellers have in common? The fact that they're not standalones - some of the hottest new titles this fall offer a continuation of many series in the form of sequels or prequels. SEQUELS Reached By Ally Condie Dutton, 384 pp.: $17.99, for ages 12 and up The conclusion to the "Matched" trilogy. (November) Days of Blood & Starlight By Laini Taylor Little, Brown, 528 pp.: $18.99, for ages 15 and up The second book in the "Daughter of Smoke & Bone" trilogy.

"The Deal," a prequel to the award-winning British film "The Queen," will have what is being billed as its world theatrical premiere at an American Cinematheque screening at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on July 23. The film, produced for British television and shown in the U.S.

He boogies across the stage at Venice's Muscle Beach to the driving beat of "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It." He dances, he whirls, he slides easily into the splits. His muscle-flexing poses show off solidly cut biceps and abs. Strutting, he grins teasingly as he motions his cheering fans to their feet. He owns the crowd. A compact superstar in Batman shorts, he is fast becoming a guest sensation at fitness competitions. And he is 7 years old.

EXCLUSIVE: Could we be in for a return trip to the Overlook Hotel? Warner Bros.is quietly exploring the possibility of a prequel to “The Shining,” the 1980 Stanley Kubrick chillfest that many fans regard as the scariest movie of all time. The studio has solicited the involvement of Hollywood writer-producer Laeta Kalogridis and her partners Bradley Fischer and James Vanderbilt to craft a new take as producers, according to a person familiar with the project who was not authorized to talk about it publicly.

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict A novel Trenton Lee Stewart Little, Brown: 470 pp., $17.99, ages 8 and up Nicholas Benedict is best known to readers as a kindly father figure in Trenton Lee Stewart's bestselling "Mysterious Benedict Society" series. In the author's new prequel, fans finally get the back story on the narcoleptic genius, long before he placed the newspaper ad that sought four gifted orphans to help him save the world. Set decades earlier in the same rural locale, the books' namesake is just 9 years old in "The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict.