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

Oct 31, 2024

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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 across this year and the 2025 movie schedule 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 the Wicked movie later this fall to a new Bridget Jones movie this Valentine’s Day. Across numerous genres, pick up these titles so you can say ‘I read that book’ before they become major movie and TV releases.

Robert R. McCammon’s 1988 novel, Stinger, is a bestseller and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, which recognizes achievements in dark fantasy and horror writing. Stinger takes place across a 24-hour period in a town in Texas when two mysterious spacecrafts land just outside town. One of them is the vehicle of an extraterrestrial bounty hunter who turns the town upside down to find his target. The series produced by The Conjuring universe’s James Wan, is called Teacup and stars Yvonne Strahovski, Scott Speedman, Kathy Baker and Chaske Spencer. Check out the Teacup trailer.

Cate Blanchett’s next role is as the lead in Disclaimer, which is a miniseries from prestigious filmmaker, Alfonso Cuarón, who famously made Children of Men, Gravity, Roma and adapted the third Harry Potter book, Prisoner of Azkaban. The book is a psychological thriller about a mysterious novel that appears on the bedside of a documentary filmmaker’s bedside. As she reads it, she realizes the novel vividly details a traumatic event in her past, despite the only other person who witnesses it being dead. The series also stars Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Louis Partridge, Lesley Manville and HoYeon Jung.

Jilly Cooper’s 1988 novel, Rivals, takes place in the world of 1980s British television as a part of the author’s Rutshire Chronicles – which tells a series of entertaining romances about Britain's elite during that time. Rivals is about a talk show star, Declan O’Hara, who gets recruited to work for a company called Corinium television, which leads to all sorts of rivalry behind the scenes. The series will star Doctor Who’s David Tennant.

Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Nickel Boys, is a historical fiction book about a black boy growing up in the 1960s named Elwood Curtis, who is sentenced to a devastating experience in a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy. It’s based on a real story of a school like it that operated for over 100 years. The film adaptation features the talents of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Daveed Diggs, Hamish Linklater and Fred Hechinger.

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.

Following Cillian Murphy nabbing an Academy Award for his work in another book adaptation about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the actor is back for a historical drama called Small Things Like These. The 2021 novel is about a coal merchant living in New Ross, Ireland in 1985, who makes a troubling secret at a local convent. The movie is also produced by Murphy and his Oppenheimer castmate, Matt Damon.

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Back in 1972, Barbara Robinson published The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which is a children’s novel about six kids, known for being rowdy and getting in trouble, who volunteer to star in their town’s Sunday school Christmas pageant. Lionsgate has turned it into a movie starring Judy Greer and Peter Holmes. The family film is directed by Dalla Jenkins, who also created Christian drama series, The Chosen.

Among the most exciting 2024 TV premiere dates this fall is a new adaptation of James Patterson’s best selling Alex Cross book series. After Tyler Perry previously played the detective in a 2012 movie, Aldis Hodge has taken up the mantle for a new Amazon series. Ben Watkins, who previously worked on Burn Notice and Hand of God is the new show’s creator.

From the 1960s to 1998, Northern Ireland went through a violent time called The Troubles rooted in the conflict centering around whether Northern Ireland would remain part of the U.K. or not. The Patrick Radden Keefe 2018 nonfiction book that delves into the conflict is the inspiration for an upcoming Hulu series.

Charles Yu’s 2020 novel, Interior Chinatown, was a huge award winner following its release (including for the National Book Award for Fiction). It’s about a man named Willis Wu, who is stuck playing roles like "Background Oriental Male" and “Delivery Guy” on a fictional police procedural called Black And White. Jimmy O. Yang is set to star in a Hulu series that has its author being showrunner and Taika Waititi as executive producer.

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 will be split into two movies based on both this novel and the musical, with the Wicked release dates being one year apart. Erivo will play Elphaba and Ariana Grande will play Glinda amongst Wicked’s incredible cast.

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. You can check our first reaction of Nightbitch following its premiere at Toronto International Film Festival.

Dav Pilkey is well known for his Captain Underpants books, but he also made a children’s comic book called Dog Man, which is a spinoff of the Underpants series. DreamWorks Animation is making a feature film based on the Dog Man comic book series. Dog Man is about a superhero who is part dog and part man.

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. You can check out the first Mickey7 trailer as we wait.

Renée Zellweger is set to return to her iconic role of Bridget Jones (which is absolutely quotable) for a third time in the Valentine’s Day release, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy. The title is pulled right from Helen Fielding’s 2013 third Bridget Jones book. In the novel, Bridget finds herself being unexpectedly a single parent who is trying her hand at online dating.

The true story about how three NFL football players got into a boating accident in 2009 was told through the non-fiction novel Not Without Hope, as told by its sole survivor. Zachary Levi, Josh Duhamel, Quentin Plair and Marshall Cook star in the drama based on the 2010 book. The Grey director Joe Carnahan is directing the film.

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 classic 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.

​​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.

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.

Dr. Suess’ beloved 1957 children’s book, The Cat In The Hat, is about a tall cat who pays a girl and her brother a visit on a rainy day when her mother is away to entertain them as his friends Thing One and Thing Two wreck the house. It was previously adapted for live action in 2003, but this time it will be an animated movie starring Bill Hader as the cat along with Quinta Brunson, Bowen Yang and Xochitl Gomez also among the voice cast. But, we’ll have to wait given The Cat in the Hat release date isn’t until 2026.

One popular science fiction bestseller in recent years has been Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, which is now getting a movie adaptation. The book comes from the same 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.

After the success of the first Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, both as a novel in 2020 and movie in 2023, Suzanne Collins and Lionsgate are diving back into Panem to tell another story from the dystopia. As announced over the summer, a novel called Sunrise on the Reaping will tell the backstory of Haymitch Abernathy’s Hunger Games. The book is coming on March 18, 2025, about a year and half before the movie’s planned release date.

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!

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.

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