Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in March 2021.
– Passage Films is moving forward with an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Hocus Pocus, which Putnam Publishing Group first released in 1990.
– LAIKA Entertainment has acquired John Brownlow’s debut novel Seventeen, and it will be the production company’s first live-action feature. Hodder & Stoughton will publish.
– Adrian Tomine will adapt his graphic novel Shortcomings for Roadside Attractions and Imminent Collision. Randall Park will produce and direct. The novel was published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2007.
– Jerico Films and Vendome Pictures have tapped Oren Moverman to write/direct the adaptation of Joseph Kessel’s nonfiction book The Man with the Miraculous Hands: The Fantastic Story of Felix Kersten, Himmler’s Private Doctor. The novel was published by Burford Books in 2004.
– BRON Studios and 21 Laps Entertainment are entering the vaccine game with an adaptation of Jeffrey Kluger’s Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. Gillian Weeks is set to script. Jeremy Strong will executive produce and star. Berkeley published the nonfiction book in 2006.
– Over at AGC Studios, Kurt Johnstad will script The Englishman, the first novel in a series of books by David Gilman. Head of Zeus published last year.
– DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. are moving forward with a Static Shock movie! Randy McKinnon will write, and People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive Michael B. Jordan will produce. The character was created for DC Comics by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle.
– …and DC/Warner Bros. will also be making a Zatanna movie, this one from Promising Young Academy Award nominee Emerald Fennell. J.J. Abrams will produce. The character was created by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson in 1964.
– …and another one: Hourman, with Gavin James and Neil Widener writing. The character was created by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily in 1940.
– Media Rights Capital have announced a series of adaptations: Monisha Dadlani will adapt Rebecca Raisin’s Rosie’s Traveling Tea Shop, published by HQ Digital earlier this year; Tom Dean will adapt Tammy Robin’s Photos of You, published by Forever in February 2020; and Allie Hagan will adapt Elin Hilderbrand’s 28 Summers, published in June 2020 by Little, Brown.
– Rick Remender will adapt Tokyo Ghost for Legendary Pictures, Parliament of Owls, and Silk Mass. Cary Fukunaga will produce and direct. The comic book series was written by Remender, drawn by Sean Murphy, and colored by Matt Hollingsworth. Image Comics first published in 2015.
– Noelle Productions has optioned Jill Wine-Banks’s memoir The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President. Henry Holt and Company published in February 2020.
– Michael Russell Gunn has been tapped by The Hideaway Entertainment and Thruline Entertainment to adapt Alone at Dawn: Medal of Honor Recipient John Chapman and the Untold Story of the World’s Deadliest Special Operations Force. Dan Schilling and Lori Chapman Longfritz’s nonfiction book was published by Grand Central Publishing in June 2019.
– The Imaginarium has optioned Catriona Ward’s supernatural thriller novel The Last House on Needless Street. Viper published in the UK last month, and Tor Nightmare will publish in the US in September.
– Angela Workman will script the adaptation of Man’s Search for Meaning for Straight Up Films. Viktor Frankl’s 1946 memoir was originally published in German in 1946 and later published in English by Beacon Press in 1956.
– Topic Studios and Vocal Films has acquired Lily King’s novel Writers and Lovers. Toni Collette and Nick Payne will write the adaptation, and Collette will direct. Grove Press published the novel in March 2020.
– Westbrook Studios has optioned writer David M. Booher and illustrator Drew Zucker’s graphic novel Canto. Booher will script the adaptation, and it will be an animated feature. IDW Publishing first released the series in March 2020.
– Made Up Stories and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films have acquired Gordon Reece’s YA novel Mice. Harriet Warner will script the adaptation. Viking first published in 2011.
– Over at Zenzero Pictures, Ed Harris will write and direct an adaptation of The Ploughmen, written by Kim Zupan. Robert Duvall and Garrett Hedlund will star. Henry Holt and Co. published in 2014.
– Amblin Partners has tapped Michelle Dean to script the adaptation of Sunny Jacobs’s Stolen Time: The Inspiring Story of an Innocent Woman Condemned to Death. The nonfiction book was published by Transworld Publishers Limited in 2008.
Additional script sales can be found here on Script Pipeline.