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Adaptations in Development – February 2021

By March 3, 2021April 11th, 2021No Comments

Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in February 2021.

Harold and the Purple Crayon is getting a live-action adaptation. David Guion and Michael Handelman will script for Sony Pictures and Davis Entertainment. Crockett Johnson’s children’s book was first published by Harper & Brothers in 1955.

– Scott Cooper will write and direct an adaptation of Louis Bayard’s novel The Pale Blue Eye for Cross Creek Pictures and Le Grisbi Productions. Christian Bale will produce and star. HarperCollins originally published the book in 2006.

– Ta-Nehisi Coates will script the next Superman movie for Warner Bros., DC Films, and Bad Robot. The character was created by Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster for National Allied Publications (now DC Comics) in 1938.

– Warner Bros., Electric Somewhere Company (Jon M. Chu), and Condé Nast Entertainment will adapt Alex W. Palmer’s GQ article “The Great Chinese Art Heist.” Chu will also direct.

– Ryan King will script the adaptation of Shannon Burke’s novel Black Flies for Sculptor Media, Projected Picture Works, and Force Majeure. Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan will produce and star, and Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire will direct. Burke’s novel was first published by Soft Skull Press in 2008.

– DNEG Animation is moving forward with their animated Great Gatsby adaptation. Brian Selznick will write the script, and William Joyce will direct. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, originally published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, entered the public domain this year.

– Guy Ritchie will script and direct an adaptation of Damien Lewis’s nonfiction novel Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops. Paramount Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films will produce. Quercus first published the book 2014.

– Standing Arrow Productions and The Film Sales Company have optioned the rights to Sally Jenkins’s nonfiction novel The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation, first published by Doubleday in 2007.

The Running Man is getting another adaptation. Paramount Pictures, Genre Films, and Complete Fiction Pictures will produce, Michael Bacall will script, and Edgar Wright is set to direct. The novel, written by Stephen King under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, was first published in 1982 by Signet Books.

– The Gotham Group has tapped David Gilbert and Andrew Sean Greer to script the adaptation of The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard. John Birdsall’s biography was published in October 2020 by W. W. Norton & Company.

– Rachel Joyce will adapt her novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry for Free Range Films and Essential Cinema. Hettie Macdonald will direct, and Jim Broadbent will star. Doubleday published Joyce’s novel in 2012.

– Over at Thruline Entertainment, Marisa Coughlan will adapt Abby Jimenez’s novel The Happy Ever After Playlist, which was published in April 2020 by Forever.

– Paul A. Kaufman will adapt Nicole Trope’s The Boy in the Photo for The Power of Us Entertainment. Kaufman will also produce and direct. Bookouture published the book in June 2019.

– Universal Pictures, Working Title Films, and The Story Factory acquired T.J. Newman’s upcoming novel Falling in a bidding war. Avid Reader Press will publish the book in July.

– Screenwriter/director Xia Magnus will adapt “Free Radicals” for Miramax Films and Jon Shestack Productions. Alice Munro’s short story was published in the New Yorker in 2008.

– Over at New Line Cinema, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is getting another adaptation. This version will be written by Neil Widener and Gavin James and directed by Nicole Kassell. The George M. Hill Company published the original novel in 1900.

– Will Collins will script the adaptation of Ryan Andrews’s YA graphic novel This Was Our Pact for Estuary Films (Peter Dinklage), Nelvana, and Duncan Studio. It will be an animated film, and Dinklage will also lend his voice. First Second published the graphic novel in 2019.

– Gabrielle Zevin will script the adaptation to her novel Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow for Paramount Pictures and Temple Hill Productions. Knopf will publish in the first half of 2022.

– Screenwriter/director Cathy Yan will adapt Rachel Khong’s “The Freshening” for FilmNation Entertainment, Hyperobject Industries, and Rewind. The short story was first published in The Paris Review in their Fall 2018 issue.

– Writer/director Chloé Zhao will adapt Dracula for Universal Pictures. This take on Bram Stoker’s novel has been described as a futuristic sci-fi western. The 1897 novel was first published by Archibald Constable and Company.

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