Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in July 2021.
– Paramount Pictures and New Leaf Literary have optioned Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children, a series of seven YA novels. Tor.com published the series, starting with the first entry Every Heart a Doorway in April 2016, and the final novel Where the Drowned Girls Go arriving in January 2022.
– Universal Pictures, along with Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, acquired The Exorcist for a new film trilogy. David Gordon Green will direct the next film, Ellen Burstyn will reprise her role from the 1973 film, and Leslie Odom Jr. will also star. Harper & Row first published William Peter Blatty’s novel that launched the franchise in 1971.
– Brian and Mark Gunn will script the adaptation of comic book writer James Patrick and artist Rem Brook’s The Kaiju Score for Sony, Escape Artists, and AfterShock Media. AfterShock Comics released the first issue in November 2020.
– Still Rolling Production and Mad Dog Films optioned Una LaMarche’s YA novel Like No Other. Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini will provide the script, and Granik will also direct. Razorbill published in 2014.
– Wingate Media and Smudge Films are moving forward with Funny Pages, written by Cam Archer and Amy Belk. The script is inspired by Cathy, the comic series by Cathy Guisewite. Archer will also direct, and Whitney Cummings and Amy Sedaris will star. The comic strip ran in syndication from 1976 to 2010 through Universal Press Syndicate and Universal Uclick.
– Bear Grylls’s The Natural Studios and Pure Grass Films are producing another adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. Francis Annan will write and direct. Journal des Débats published Alexandre Dumas’s serialized novel in eighteen parts from 1844 to 1846.
– Writer/director Steve Falk will adapt The Rosie Project for Matt Tolmach Productions. Henry Cavill all star. Graeme Simsion’s novel was published in 2013 by Text Publishing.
– Warner Bros. and 21 Laps are adapting writer Bryan Edward Hill and artist Priscilla Petraites’s graphic novel Chariot for film. Julian Meiojas will script, and Joseph Kosinski will produce/direct. AWA Studios published the graphic novel earlier this year.
– Akimoto Project and Westbrook Studios have tapped Jonathan Herman to script the adaptation to Yasushi Akimoto’s book Elephant’s Back. Akimoto will produce alongside Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. Japan-based Kodansha first published the children’s book in 2007.
– Writer/director Tanya Saracho will adapt her 2014 off-Broadway play Mala Hierba for AC Studios and Ojalá Productions.
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