Upcoming Book-To-Screen Adaptations: What To Read Before The Movie Or TV Show

The simple joy of reading a book can inspire so much. While we’re turning their pages, we use our imaginations to live inside entire worlds with its characters. There are so many great books being made into movies or TV shows over the course of this year and beyond. And, since there’s nothing quite like comparing a production’s vision to your own personal experience reading a story, we’re preparing you for everything you should read before the Hollywood adaptation hits theaters and our TV screens. 

Time to pop open your TBR list, because a lot of upcoming book-to-screen adaptations are on the way across loads of genres, from Netflix’s next season of Bridgerton to the Wicked movie. Across numerous genres, pick up these titles so you can say ‘I read that book’ before they become major movie and TV releases.

The Idea Of You (Robinne Lee)

The “fanfiction to book to movie pipeline” is back with the adaptation of The Idea Of You starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine. The book is about a 39-year-old divorced mother and owner of an art gallery named Soléne (Hathaway), who is reluctant to take her daughter to meet her favorite boy band, but once she does she passionately connects with one of the members, August Moon (Galitzine). The story is reportedly based on a One Direction fanfiction. 

The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris)

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a novel based on a true story of a Slovakian Jew named Lale Sokolov who is assigned the job of a tattooist for prisoners at an Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. It's there where he falls in love with a prisoner named Gita, and vows to survive the atrocities of their circumstances so they can share a happy life with one another. The Peacock series stars Harvey Keitel as Lale, Anne Próchniak as Gita along with Melanie Lynskey and Jonah Hauer-King being among the cast.

Turtles All The Way Down (John Green)

After numerous John Green novels, like The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns and Looking For Alaska, have been adapted previously into movies and TV shows, another one of the author’s books is next. Turtles All The Way Down is the adaptation of the book of the same name about Aza Holmes, a teen living with OCD and anxiety who tries to solve the mystery of a fugitive billionaire. The movie stars Isabela Merced and is coming to those with a Max subscription this May.  

A Man In Full (Tom Wolfe)

Netflix has adapted Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel, A Man In Full, with Jeff Daniels, Diane Lane, William Jackson Harper and Lucy Liu. Like the book, A Man In Full takes place primarily in Atlanta, Georgia and follows a real estate mogul who has to defend his empire after suddenly going bankrupt, among other interconnected characters. 

Dark Matter (Blake Crouch)

This spring, Blake Crouch’s 2016 science-fiction thriller Dark Matter is getting a TV adaptation starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. The novel follows Jason Desson (whom Edgerton will play), who is a physicist who gets kidnapped and wakes up living a life that is not the same as it used to be. His wife is no longer his wife, his son was never born and he’s a celebrated genius. We’ll leave the secrets he uncovers for you to read and see once the show premieres. 

Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Julia Quinn)

Netflix found a phenomenon in 2020 with Bridgerton and the series is set to continue in 2023 with another adaptation of one of Julia Quinn’s novels from the Regency romance series. The third season will go out of order in the Bridgerton book series, jumping to the 2002 fourth novel, Romancing Mister Bridgerton. This novel focuses on Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington’s romance following the pair developing a friendship prior. Check out the first images from the new season ahead of its premiere. 

The Watchers (A.M. Shine)

2022 horror adventure novel, The Watchers by A.M. Shine is the inspiration for the feature directorial debut for Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of M. Night Shylamalan. The movie will star Dakota Fanning as the novel’s protagonist, a 28-year-old artist who becomes trapped in a mysterious forest in western Ireland.

Presumed Innocent (Scott Turow)

Back in 1980, Harrison Ford starred in an adaptation of Scott Turow’s legal thriller, Presumed Innocent. Over 40 years later, Jake Gyllenhaal will star in a new adaptation of the novel of a prosecutor who becomes the prime suspect in a murder of his former lover. 

It Ends With Us (Colleen Hoover)

Colleen Hoover’s beloved romance novel It Ends With Us is becoming a 2024 movie starring Blake Lively. The 2016 book that remains on Amazon’s top bestselling books years later centers on a young woman who becomes caught between a new fling with a neurosurgeon and her first love when she returns to her hometown in Maine to attend her father’s funeral. While fans were initially not happy with Lively’s casting not matching the book character’s age, Hoover has shared she “messed up” making her characters so young for the subject matter and made the decision to change it for the film.  

Rule: A Marked Men Novel (Jay Crownover)

Jay Crownover’s bestselling YA romance Rule is coming to the big screen this fall, with Marked Men. The movie is set to star Outer Banks’ Chase Stokes and American Born Chinese’s Sydney Taylor will play the couple at the center of the passionate romance written by After We Fell’s Sharon Soboil. The book itself is an opposites attract love story about a good girl pre-med student who ends up falling for a tattooed-up rebel. 

The Legacy of Mark Rothko (Lee Seldes)

Mark Rothko was famously a painter associated with the Abstract Expressionist modern art movement. The 1978 novel The Legacy of Mark Rothko unveiled some in-depth information about the troubled artist, detailing what became of a ton of his artwork following his apparent suicide and legal scandals associated with his life and death. Fifty Shades Of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson is helming its adaptation Rothko, which will see Russell Crowe playing the painter, and The Last Voyage of Demeter’s Aisling Franciosi as his daughter as she is drawn into a legal battle to honor her father’s legacy. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is the husband to the director, is also among the cast. 

Conclave (Robert Harris)

The 2016 novel, Conclave, is a fictional novel about how the death of a pope leads to a papal conclave in order to elect the next one in line. Robert Harris’ book has been adapted by All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger, with Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini among the cast. 

Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Gregory Maguire)

Sure, everyone knows Wicked as a smash hit on Broadway, but the idea to tell the Wicked of the West’s origin story came from the 1995 novel from Gregory Maguire, which then inspired the beloved musical. Wicked is set to be adapted in two movies based on both this novel and the musical, per one star Cynthia Erivo. Erivo will play Elphaba and Ariana Grande will play Glinda amongst Wicked’s incredible cast. 

Nightbitch (Rachel Yoder)

Rachel Yoder’s 2021 horror novel Nightbitch is set to be adapted into a movie by Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood’s director, Marielle Heller. The movie will star and be produced by Amy Adams. The book itself is about a stay-at-home mother with a two-year-old who starts to believe that she is turning into a dog at night. 

Mickey7 (Edward Ashton)

Bong Joon-ho’s next movie since winning Best Picture for Parasite is a movie called Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo and Naomi Ackie. It’s based on a 2022 science fiction novel by Edward Ashton about a disposable employee on an expedition to colonize an ice world called Niflheim. After one iteration of Mickey dies, a new body is regenerated, with many of the previous versions intact. 

The Amateur (Robert Littell)

Slow Horses filmmaker James Hawes has lined up a star-studded cast for The Amateur that includes Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne and Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe. The book it's based on by Robert Littell was previously adapted into a movie in 1981 (the year it was published). It’s considered a spy thriller classics that follows a cryptographer for the CIA who takes matters into his own hands when his fiancée is murdered by terrorists and his agency decides not to pursue the case. 

Cold Storage (David Koepp)

Liam Neeson, Stranger Things’ Joe Keery and Smile’s Sosie Bacon are set to star in a thriller called Cold Storage based on the novel of the same title. David Koepp, who is also behind blockbuster movies like Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, 2002’s Spider-Man, published the novel back in 2019. It’s about a group of strangers who must come together to contain a very contagious and deadly organism. 

The Twits (Roald Dahl)

​​There’s been so many great Roald Dahl adaptations over the years, from numerous Wonka movies, to Fantastic Mr. Fox or Matilda. Netflix is now adapting an animated version of The Twits, which has yet to be imagined into a movie prior. The Twits is a children’s novel from 1980 about a couple who play a series of practical jokes on others for their own amusement. 

Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)

One popular science fiction bestseller in recent years has been Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, which is now getting a movie adaptation. The author who previously wrote The Martian, which was adapted into a blockbuster by Ridley Scott and starred Matt Damon. Project Hail Mary follows the journey of a school teacher that became an astronaut as he comes out of a coma while in space. The movie version will star Ryan Gosling as the protagonist with Phil Lord and Chris Miller of the Spider-Verse movies signed on to direct. 

Anyone else ready to head to the library and the bookstore to get caught up on these? There are so many upcoming book-to-screen adaptations on the way, and following along with what's next via your reading list is a great way to enjoy these movies and TV shows even more!