Adaptations in Development

Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in May 2020: – Steven A. Finly will adapt Almythea for Rio Vista Universal and PorchLight Entertainment. Bruce Logan will direct, with Priscilla Presley executive producing. The novels were written and created by A.J. Cootes and the first in the series, Almythea: Rise of Wingtar was published by BCG Publishing in 2019. – Blumhouse Productions and Epic Magazine have tapped Issa López to script and direct Our Lady of Tears, based on an article written by Daniel Hernandez and published by Epic Magazine and Vox. – Rachel Hirons will adapt Sarah Knight’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck for New Line Cinema and Five Quarters Entertainment. The satirical self-help book was published by Little, Brown in December 2015. – Geoff Rodkey will adapt his middle-grade novel We’re Not from Here for Columbia Pictures and Olive Bridge Entertainment. Mike…

Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in April 2020: – Christy Hall has been tapped to adapt Stephen King’s novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for Village Roadshow Pictures, Stampede Ventures, and Vertigo Entertainment. The novel was originally published by Scribner in 1999. – Jeff Nichols will write and direct The Yankee Comandante, adapted from David Grann’s New Yorker article. Adam Driver will star, and Imperative Entertainment and 30WEST will produce. – Claire North’s sci-fi novel The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is getting an adaptation from Amblin Partners, Blueprint Pictures, and Oddball Entertainment. Melissa Iqbal will script, and Wes Ball will direct. The novel was published in April 2014 by Orbit Books in the UK and Redhook Books in the US. – Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions has acquired Lawrence Wright’s novel The End of October. Scott to produce, possibly direct as well. The…

Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in March 2020: – Simon Stephenson will adapt his sci-fi novel Set My Heart to Five for Focus Features, Working Title Films, and Complete Fiction Pictures. Edgar Wright is attached to direct. The novel will be published by 4th Estate in the UK in summer 2020 and by Hanover Square Press in the US in September 2020. – MGM and Arcana acquired Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel The Hail Mary. Ryan Gosling will produce and star. Random House will publish the novel in spring 2021. – Bow and Arrow Entertainment and Our Lady Productions picked up T. Kira Madden’s memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. Frankie Shaw is attached to produce and direct. Bloomsbury published the book in 2019. – Peer Kaee and Per Kuskner’s Danish novel The Midas Syndrome was acquired by Ugly Duckling Films. The novel is inspired…

Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in February 2020: – Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s novel The Wind in the Willows is getting another adaptation! Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes will script for Kindred Images and Bill Melendez Productions. Methuen first published the novel. – James Graham will adapt his play Ink for BRON Studios. The play is inspired by Rupert Murdoch. – Universal has optioned E. L. James’ 2019 novel The Mister, published by Vintage Books. – Charles Murray will script a Sammy Davis, Jr., biopic for Paramount Pictures and di Bonaventura Pictures. The film will be based on several sources, including Sammy Davis, Jr.’s 1965 autobiography Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (co-written with Jane and Burt Boyar). The book was originally published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. – ACE Entertainment has optioned Abigail Hing Wen’s YA novel Loveboat, Taipei. The novel was published…

Here are some of the most notable adaptations announced in January 2020: – The Los Angeles Media Fund acquired Seymour Reit’s book The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa, originally published in 1981 by Summit Books. William Wheeler will script the adaptation, and Jodie Foster is attached to direct. – John W. Campbell’s Frozen Hell is set up at Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures. The novel was published in April 2019 by Wildside Press although, originally, it was previously released as an abridged 1938 novella titled Who Goes There?, which was in turn adapted into the 1951’s The Thing from Another World, 1982’s The Thing, and 2011’s The Thing. – Lionsgate, Point Grey Pictures, and BOOM! Studios will produce James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan’s graphic novel Memetic. Mattson Tomlin will script the adaptation, and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are attached as producers. BOOM! Studios also published the three-part…

Over at Script Pipeline, we have been tracking notable script sales for the past ten years to give screenwriters a sense of the current trends in the film industry. This year, we’ll start tracking all novels and other literary works in development as well, from acquisitions of soon-to-be-published manuscripts to adaptations of novels originally published decades ago. Although these aren’t all of the novels that found homes in Hollywood, here are some of the most notable ones from last month: – Lionsgate will adapt Tomie dePaola’s children’s book series Strega Nona for film. Originally published in 1975, Simon & Schuster recently reprinted the series in 2017. Weston Woods Studios previously adapted the material as an animated short in 1977. – Journalist Madeline Leung Coleman’s article “How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk” will be adapted by Topic Studios, the production arm of Topic.com, where the article was originally…