Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in June 2020:
– Jesse James Films has optioned the film and TV rights to Shawn Amos’s children’s novel Cookies & Milk. Little, Brown will publish the book in Spring 2022.
– Anthony McCarten will adapt his nonfiction novel Wednesday at Warren’s, Friday at Bill’s for Compelling Pictures and Muse of Fire Productions. The book (soon-to-be published by Harper Collins) is based on the the 30-year friendship between Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and their philanthropic endeavors.
– Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen will script the Horoscope adaptation for Screen Gems and Alloy Entertainment. Nicholas Adams’s YA horror novel was published by HarperCollins in 1992.
– Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal’s novel I’m Not Dying with You Tonight has been picked up by Prominent Productions and Radar Pictures. The YA novel was published by Sourcebooks Fire in 2019.
– D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Love is getting another adaptation. David Magee will script, and the project is set up at 3000 Pictures, Laurence Mark Productions, and Blueprint Pictures. The original novel was published in 1928 by Italian publisher Tipografia Giuntina.
– Astro-Nomical Entertainment and Continuance Pictures have optioned Fleur Ferris’s 2019 children’s book Nullaboo Hullabaloo. Peter Lepeniotis will script and direct the animated film.
– Paramount Pictures and Overbrook Entertainment have acquired Megan Shull’s novel Bounce. Josann McGibbon will script the adaptation, and Will Smith will produce. JoJo Siwa is attached to star. Bounce was published in 2016 by Katherine Tegen Books.
– Fequa Films and 87North are teaming for an adaptation of the Japanese novel Mariabītoru = Mariabeetle by Isaka Kotaro, currently titled Bullet Train. Zak Olkewicz is set to write the script, and David Leitch to direct. The book was first published in Japan in 2010.
– Skydance and Temple Hill Productions have acquired the short story “Summer Frost” by Blake Crouch. Neil Burger is attached to direct. Amazon Original Stories published the short in 2019.
– Drew Goddard has been tapped to develop the sci-fi/drama Hail Mary with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, based on the novel by Andy Weir. Lord and Miller are attached to direct, Ryan Gosling to star, and the project is currently set up at Arcana, Lord Miller, and Pascal Pictures. Random House will publish Weir’s novel in spring 2021.
– Will Dunn will adapt Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree for Warner Bros. and 42. The novel was first published in 1972 by Alfred A. Knopf and was previously adapted into a 1993 animated film produced by Hanna-Barbera.
– Working Title Films, Complete Fiction Pictures, and The Story Factory optioned Adrian McKinty’s thriller novel The Chain. Jane Goldman will script the adaptation, and Edgar Wright will produce/direct. LittleBrown/Mulholland published the novel in July 2019.
– Over at Lionsgate, Eric Roth has been tapped to script the adaptation for “London,” a short story by Jo Nesbø. Ben Stiller will direct with Oscar Isaac starring.
– Jason Kim will adapt Choe Sang-Hun’s New York Times article “Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers” for CJ Entertainment and Anonymous Content. The article was published in April 2019.
– Steven Levenson will provide the script for Universal Pictures and Marc Platt Productions’s adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. Levenson wrote the book for the 2015 musical, with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Stephen Chbosky will direct, and Ben Platt and Kaitlyn Dever will possibly star.
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