Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in May 2022.
- Sony Pictures International has picked up author Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Indian Girl, which was published by Indian publishing company Rupa & Co. in 2016.
- Bleeker Street Entertainment, Ten Acre Films, and Rockhill Studios are adapting Steven Dietz’s play Shooting Star for the screen under the new title What Happens Later. Dietz and Kirk Lynn will be providing the screenplay. Meg Ryan will direct, as well as star alongside David Duchovny.
- A Reddit post is getting the movie treatment! 3000 Pictures, Lit Entertainment Group, and Ground Control are producing I Think My Mother-In-Law Is Trying to Kill Me, based on Nick Moorefox’s 2019 short story that he posted on the website before it went viral. Jessica Knoll has been tapped to write the script.
- State Street Pictures and Scout Comics have optioned the graphic novel Assassin & Son from creators Shad Gaspard and Marc Copani and illustrator Eder Messiah. Scout Comics published the first issue in November 2020.
- AC Studios and Chapter One Productions have optioned Kitty Tait’s memoir Breadsong, which Bloomsbury Publishing just released this month.
- Identity Media and Dark Dreams Entertainment are producing Branded, scripted by Alessandro Camon and based on David Grann’s 2004 New Yorker article “The Brand”. Kieron Hawkes will direct, and lex Pettyfer, Frank Grillo, Maria Bakalova, and Tom Hopper round out the cast.
- General Film Corporation and the New Zealand Film Commission are adapting Carl Shuker’s A Mistake. Christine Jeffs will write and direct, and Elizabeth Banks will star. The novel was originally published in September 2019 by Counterpoint.
- Over at Warner Bros., Crazy Rich Asians is getting a spinoff! Based on the novels by Kevin Kwan (published by Anchor), the film will focus on Gemma Chan’s and Harry Shum Jr.’s characters.
- WestEnd Films and Zero Gravity are making the dark comedy Sinner v. Saints, based on the novel Joyce McKinney and the Case of the Manacled Mormon by Anthony Delano. Tim Kirkby will direct, Freddie Highmore and Maisie Williams will star, and Script Pipeline alum Jill Hoppe will provide the script. The original novel was published in 1978 by Mirror Books.
- House Productions and FilmNation Entertainment have acquired Conclave, based on the novel by Robert Harris. Peter Straughan will provide the script, Edward Berger will direct, and the all-star cast includes Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini. Knopf first published Harris’s novel in November 2016.
- William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is getting another adaptation; this version has been described as a British Indian adaptation set in London. Storyteller Productions, Left Handed Films (Riz Ahmed), and JW Films will serve as the film’s production companies, and it will star Ahmed, Morfydd Clark, and Joe Alywn. Aneil Karia (who collaborated with Ahmed on their Oscar-winning short “The Long Goodbye”) will direct.
- Writer/director Paul Barry will adapt The Skeleton Tree for 87North and 3Fifty Fifty. The novel, written by Iain Lawrence, was first published by Delacorte Press in January 2016.
- Paramount Pictures, Atomic Monster (James Wan), and 3 Arts Entertainment are moving forward with Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit. Screenwriter Melanie Toast will provide the script, based on a horror short story written by Julianna Baggott.
- Protozoa Pictures, Plan B Entertainment, and Wild Bunch are adapting John Vaillant’s book The Tiger. Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi will write and direct the film, and Alexander Skarsgård and Dane DeHaan will star. Knopf originally published the novel in 2010.
- Universal Pictures and AC Studios have picked up Nicholas Sparks’s novel The Wish, which Grand Central published last September.
Additional script sales can be found here on Script Pipeline.