Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in October 2021.
– Dune: Part 2 has gotten the greenlight! The first film was directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Jon Spaihts, Villeneuve, and Eric Roth, based on the novel by Frank Herbert. Villeneuve and the main cast (including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, and Zendaya) will return. The novel was originally published by Chilton Books in 1965 and launched a book series and multiple film/TV adaptations.
– StudioCanal and The Picture Company have picked up the period drama Hellish Nell, a spec written by Chris Basler. It is based on the novel by Malcolm Gaskill, which in term is based on the true story of Helen Duncan, the last woman tried and convicted under Britain’s 1735 Witchcraft Act in 1944 in London. Fourth Estate originally published the book in 2001.
– Gabriel Bergmoser has been tapped to script the GremoryLand adaptation for Wattpad Webtoon Studios and Vertigo Entertainment. A. Rasen wrote and created the horror webcomic, and it was first published on webtoons.com and ran from February through April 2020.
– Paramount Players has optioned eight books from Gregg Hurwitz’s Marked Man series of novels. HarperTorch published the first in the series, Do No Harm, in 2002.
– The Matthau Company and Zoom Entertainment have acquired the film and TV rights to Alyson Noel’s YA novel Field Guide to the Supernatural Universe. Simon & Schuster will publish next year.
– MindsEye has tapped Winsome Pinnock to script Champion, based on Rob Howard’s nonfiction book Len Johnson and the Colour Bar: Britain’s Uncrowned Champion. Howard self-published the novel in 2009.
– Jon Croker will adapt the YA novel Skandar and the Unicorn Thief for Sony. It’s the first in a series written by A.F. Steadman, and Simon and Schuster will publish next year.
– Aaron Rabin will adapt Old Haunts for AWA Studios. The graphic novel was written by Ollie Master and Rob Williams and drawn by Laurence Campbell. Upshot published the graphic novel in February of this year.
– wiip and AC Studios have tapped Ayad Akhtar to script Doomsday Machine, a limited series based on Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination. Harper published in July 2021.
– Paramount Players and Alloy Entertainment have picked up David Yoon’s YA novel Frankly in Love and tapped Allison Lee and Evan Dodson to script. Penguin Young Readers published it in 2019.
Additional script sales can be found here on Script Pipeline.