Upcoming YA Book-to-Movie and TV Adaptations
While the book is almost always better than the movie, I still can’t help but love seeing some of my favorite stories come to life on a screen. That said, here are eight YA books currently in the works to becoming movies or TV shows that I am keeping an eye on in 2020.
1. The Wicked Deep
COMING TO NETFLIX
Netflix won the screen rights to The Wicked Deep in an unusually competitive auction in 2018 according to Deadline. While an official date has not been released, the film with be produced by Cherin Entertainment.
Two centuries ago, in the cursed town of Sparrow, Oregon, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery and drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under. When seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot falls for the unaware newcomer Bo Carter, she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.
2. the beast is an animal
COMING TO AMAZON STUDIOS
Sir Ridley Scott is producing a movie based on the dark fantasy novel The Beast Is an Animal according to Screen Rant. The British filmmaker is teaming up with Amazon Studios to produce the big screen adaptation of Peternelle van Arsdale's book via his production company Scott Free.
A girl with a secret talent must save her village from the encroaching darkness in this haunting and deeply satisfying tale. Alys was seven when the soul eaters came to her village. These soul eaters, twin sisters who were abandoned by their father and slowly morphed into something not quite human, devour human souls. Alys, and all the other children, were spared—and they were sent to live in a neighboring village. But, inside, Alys feels connected to the soul eaters because of a gift she can tell no one, for fear they will call her a witch. When disaster strikes, Alys finds herself on a journey to heal herself and her world. A journey that will take her through the darkest parts of the forest, where danger threatens her from the outside—and from within her own heart and soul.
3. CHAOS WALKING (THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO)
COMING JANUARY 2021, LIONSGATE
Chaos Walking is an upcoming American science fiction film based on Patrick Ness's 2008 novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, the first part of the Chaos Walking trilogy. While the film finished filming back in 2017, and has had its hiccups along the way, it is finally scheduled to be released on January 22, 2021, by Lionsgate.
Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him -- something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.
4. CHEMICAL HEARTS
COMING AUGUST 2020, AMAZON STUDIOS
Chemical Hearts, the coming-of-age drama starring and executive produced by Riverdale‘s Lili Reinhart, will hit Amazon Prime Video on August 21, 2020, according to Deadline. Based on Krystal Sutherland's YA novel Our Chemical Hearts, the upcoming Amazon movie from director Richard Tanne stars Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams.
Henry Page has never been in love. He fancies himself a hopeless romantic, but the heart palpitating, can't-eat-can't-sleep kind of love that he's been hoping for just hasn't been in the cards for him-at least not yet. Then, Grace Town walks into his first period class on the third Tuesday of senior year and he knows everything's about to change. Grace isn't who Henry pictured as his dream girl, but when Grace and Henry are both chosen to edit the school paper, he quickly finds himself falling for her. It's obvious there's something broken about Grace, but it seems to make her even more beautiful to Henry. As he learns the heartbreaking secret that has changed her life, he finds himself falling in love with her — or at least the person he thinks she is.
5. WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS
COMING AUGUST 2020, LD ENTERTAINMENT AND ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
LD Entertainment and Roadside Attractions have reteamed to release of the feature adaptation of Julia Walton’s YA Novel Words on Bathroom Walls. The teen drama is set to debut nationwide August 7, 2020, and marks the first theatrical release for both companies since the coronavirus pandemic.
Adam has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He sees and hears people who aren’t there: Rebecca, a beautiful girl who understands him; the Mob Boss, who harasses him; and Jason, the naked guy who’s unfailingly polite. It should be easy to separate the real from the not real, but Adam can't. Still, there’s hope. As Adam starts fresh at a new school, he begins a drug trial that helps him ignore his visions. Suddenly everything seems possible, even love. When he meets Maya, a fiercely intelligent girl, he desperately wants to be the great guy that she thinks he is. But then the miracle drug begins to fail, and Adam will do anything to keep Maya from discovering his secret.
6. Shadow and bone
COMING TO NETFLIX (TV SERIES)
Shadow and Bone is a forthcoming Netflix adaptation of the Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo. The series, announced on January 10, 2019, will be created, written and executive produced by showrunner Eric Heisserer, and executive produced by Leigh Bardugo, Shawn Levy, Pouya Shahbazian, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen and Josh Barry for 21 Laps Entertainment. Season 1 will serve as an adaptation of the novel Shadow and Bone and act as a prequel to the events of the novel Six of Crows.
In a world cleaved in two by a massive barrier of perpetual darkness, the Shadow Fold, where unnatural creatures feast on human flesh, a young soldier uncovers a power that might finally unite her country. But as she struggles to hone her power, dangerous forces plot against her. Meanwhile, a prodigal gang leader on the other side of the world embarks on a dangerous heist.
7. THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE
COMING TO NETFLIX
There's Someone Inside Your House is an upcoming American slasher film directed by Patrick Brice, from a screenplay by Henry Gayden, and based upon Stephanie Perkins' 2017 novel of the same name. It stars Sydney Park, Theodore Pellerin, Asjha Cooper, Dale Whibley, Jesse LaTourette, Burkely Duffield, Diego Josef, Markian Tarasiuk and Sarah Dugdale. The film is expected to be released on Netflix in 2020.
Makani Young thought she'd left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She's found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn't far behind. Soon, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series of gruesome murders. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani races against time to uncover the dark secrets that the victims harbored and unravel the identity of the serial killer.
8. NORMAL PEOPLE
COMING APRIL 2020, HULU
Normal People is an Irish drama television series produced by Element Pictures for BBC Three and Hulu in association with Screen Ireland. Based on the novel of the same name by Sally Rooney. The series was primarily written by Rooney and Alice Birch, and directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald. In the United States, the series was released in its entirety on Hulu on 29 April 2020. The series has received critical acclaim, with praise for the performances, writing, and its portrayal of mature content.
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
