Thanks to major properties like Game of Thrones and Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, we’ve entered a golden age of sci-fi and fantasy properties being developed for film and television. It seems that nearly every network and studio has snatched up the rights to old and new classics, with a bevy of projects in production or premiering in the coming months. To keep you on top of the latest news, we’ve updated our master list of every SFF adaptation currently in the works, from American Gods to Y: The Last Man.
Check out this list and get your DVRs and Netflix queues ready, because you’re going to be wonderfully busy for the foreseeable future.
RUMORED
Black Widow by various Marvel Comics writers and artists
Originally published: 1964, Marvel Comics
Optioned for: Film (Marvel Studios)
What it’s about: No word if a standalone Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) film would be an origin story, something set after Avengers: Infinity War, or something in-between.
Status: Very much rumored, though an interesting (albeit unconfirmed) report in early 2018 claimed that Marvel had hired screenwriter Jac Schaeffer (TiMER, The Shower, Nasty Women) to write the script.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Originally published: 1984, Random House
Optioned for: Film (TBD)
What it’s about: Lifelong friends who had gone their separate ways are reunited by a mysterious woman with a crystal staff, destined to become something they never would have expected: heroes.
Status: Joe Manganiello (Magic Mike) is enthusiastic about making a Dungeons & Dragons movie happen—specifically, this adaptation of the first Dragonlance novel, from a screenplay developed with John Cassel. Manganiello has been in talks with Wizards of the Coast, but so far this project seems to be in the very early planning stages. In the meantime, revisit our Dragonlance Reread!
Watchmen by Alan Moore (writer) and Dave Gibbons (artist)
Originally published: 1986, DC Comics
Optioned for: Television (HBO)
What it’s about: In alternate-universe 1985—after the emergence of costumed heroes in the 1940s and ’60s turned the tide in historical events such as the Vietnam War—the murder of The Comedian brings these retired vigilantes out of hiding.
Status: “Preliminary discussions regarding Watchmen have occurred, but we have no additional information and no deals are in place,” HBO said after meeting with Zack Snyder, who adapted the graphic novel into a 2009 film.
IN THE WORKS
100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello (writer) and Eduardo Risso (artist)
Originally published: 1999-2009, Vertigo Comics
Optioned for: Film (New Line Cinema)
What it’s about: In Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s noiry, pulpy comic book series, the mysterious Agent Graves approaches people with a gun, the identity of the person who ruined their lives, and a hundred rounds of untraceable ammunition.
Status: Tom Hardy is on board to produce and potentially star in the movie adaptation.
3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Originally published: 1997, Del Rey
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: In 2014, Syfy announced that it would develop a miniseries based on Clarke’s fourth and final Odyssey book, which wraps up the loose ends from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Status: No update since the 2014 announcement, and Syfy seems concerned with plenty of other projects (many of which are adaptations).
Aleister Arcane by Steve Niles (writer) and Breehn Burns (artist)
Originally published: 2004, IDW Publishing
Optioned for: Film (Amblin Entertainment)
What it’s about: Weatherman-turned-late-night TV horror show host Aleister Arcane (a.k.a. Green) gets a kick out of airing gory little skits, until the local sponsors in his hometown of Jackson, OK, shut him down. But when a tragic incident gets him taken off the air and forced into early retirement, the local kids realize that Aleister Arcane has laid a curse upon their town.
Status: Eli Roth is teaming up with Jim Carrey (who will star and produce) to adapt Niles’ series. Jon Croker (The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death) will write the screenplay with David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman.
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Originally published: 2017, Penguin Publishing Group
Optioned for: Film (Paramount/Pascal Pictures)
What it’s about: Mastai pitched the alternate-universe novel as Kurt Vonnegut trying to tell The Time Traveler’s Wife with the narrative voice of Jonathan Tropper: A man from a utopian AU falls into the very real 2015 and must decide whether he wants to return to his time or try to establish a life in this new reality.
Status: Amy Pascal nabbed the film rights at the 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair. Mastai will write the script for the adaptation and executive produce.
Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
Originally published: 2008, Scholastic
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: Kibuishi’s ongoing graphic novel series (which won the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults in 2008) follows siblings Emily and Navin through a portal into a fantasy world filled with giant robots and man-eating demons. Led by the talking rabbit Miskit, Em (wearing the eponymous amulet) and Navin search for their missing mother.
Status: 20th Century Fox is looking to develop the series into a potential film franchise. Aron Coleite (co-executive producer of the Star Trek TV series) will write the screenplay.
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Originally published: 2011, Tor Teen
Optioned for: Film (Fickle Fish Productions)
What it’s about: Ghost hunter Cas (Cameron Monaghan) is surprised when Anna Dressed in Blood (Maddie Hasson), a ghost known for killing anyone who sets foot in the abandoned Victorian she calls him, decides to spare his life. As he investigates her curse, these opposites grow closer.
Status: Twilight author Stephenie Meyer will produce, with music video director Trish Sie helming a script from Allison Wood.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Originally published: 2014, Orbit Books
Optioned for: Film
What it’s about: Breq used to be the spaceship Justice of Toren, controlling countless ancillary soldiers, before an accident fragmented her. Now, in a single form, she is returning to the Imperial Radch to confront its ruler, Anaander Mianaai.
Status: In 2014, Ann Leckie shared the exciting news that Ancillary Justice had been optioned for television! Fabrik and Fox Television Studios (who have between them worked on The Killing, Burn Notice, and The Americans, among other series) are interested, especially in terms of dealing with the series’ depictions of gender and race. There’s been no update since, but as Leckie put it, “the potential is there, and that’s tremendously cool!”
Artemis by Andy Weir
Originally published: 2017, Crown
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: Jasmine Bashara is an occasional smuggler on Artemis, the first and only city on the Moon. But when Jazz gets the chance to commit the perfect crime, she instead stumbles into the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis.
Status: 20th Century Fox acquired the movie rights to the novel months before publication. The Martian producers Simon Kinberg and Aditya Sood are onboard for the adaptation, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller directing.
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
Originally published: 2001, Viking Press
Optioned for: Film (Walt Disney Company)
What it’s about: Colfer’s beloved series follows teenage genius Artemis Fowl, who in the first book kidnaps LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Recon) captain Holly Short in order to ransom her to the Fairy People.
Status: Since 2001, the film rights to the Artemis Fowl series have moved from Miramax to Disney. Though Kenneth Branagh signed on as director in 2015, there has been no news on the project until an open casting call in 2017 raised fans’ hopes again.
Ascendant, from Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Originally published: 2011, HarperCollins
Optioned for: Television (Starz)
What it’s about: Post-apocalyptic Chicago has been split into five factions, ways to group citizens possessing different affinities: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. When Abnegation member Tris discovers that she is Divergent—able to choose more than one faction—she goes for the brave, reckless adventurers Dauntless. Along the way, she uncovers conspiracy upon conspiracy that threaten the entire social system of the city.
Status: The Divergent franchise stumbled in the box office, with the third installment (part one of the third book) Allegiant not doing as well as its predecessors Divergent and Insurgent. Lionsgate announced in 2016 that it would release the fourth planned film, Ascendant, as a TV movie, and then develop a spinoff starring an entirely new cast. As of 2017, Starz will develop a new take on Allegiant for TV; it’s unclear if star Shailene Woodley and any of the original cast might return to wrap up the story.
Astronaut Academy by Dave Roman
Originally published: 2011, First Second Books
Optioned for: Film and Television (TBD)
What it’s about: Short version: “Harry Potter in space.” Long version: Hakata Soy, along with his friends and crushes Miyumi San and Maribelle Melonbelly, split time at Astronaut Academy between pop quizzes and Fireball Championships and saving the galaxy from threats that adults just can’t handle.
Status: Writer/producer Vivek J. Tiwary (The Fifth Beatle) has optioned the film and TV rights; he is currently in talks with studios, networks, and other creatives.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Originally published: 2016, Tor.com Publishing
Optioned for: Television (AMC)
What it’s about: Tommy Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and gets caught up in a Lovecraftian conspiracy to conjure the destruction of the world.
Status: AMC announced the project as part of their “scripts-to-series development model that puts the emphasis on the most important part of our strategy – outstanding writing, a commitment to worlds you’ve never seen on TV before, and rich character development.” No casting announcements yet, but Victor LaValle will act as co-executive producer.
Untitled Batgirl Movie by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1961, DC Comics
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros/DC Entertainment)
What it’s about: No word yet on if the project will draw inspiration from Batgirl’s current, rebooted arc, or the more classic stories like Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke or Gail Simone’s run.
Status: Joss Whedon exited the project in early 2018, a year after signing on, after admitting that he had no way in to Batgirl’s story. No word yet on who will replace him.
The Batman, by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1939, DC Comics
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros/DC Films)
What it’s about: Since the project has recently changed hands creatively, no word on the take on this standalone Batman film starring Ben Affleck.
Status: Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, War for the Planet of the Apes) has taken over directing and writing from Affleck.
Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey
Originally published: 2016, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Optioned for: Television (Studio 8)
What it’s about: In Howey’s collection of linked novellas, the notion of the lighthouse keeping boats safe has transformed into lighthouses in space, sending beacons across the Milky Way to ensure safe passage for spaceships. But when the supposedly reliable beacons break down, a shellshocked former soldier must put aside his past to help the ships traveling out in the dark.
Status: Studio 8 has tapped Josh Friedman (creator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and screenwriter, Avatar 3) to develop the TV series.
Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life by Marcus Wohlsen
Originally published: 2011, Penguin Publishing Group
Optioned for: Television (Legendary Television)
What it’s about: In 2011, WIRED editor Wohlsen delved into a then-mostly-unknown subculture of biohackers working to change how we build and alter genetic code. In the intervening half-decade, biopunk has become much more mainstream, so it’s good timing to reexamine Wohlsen’s book on the small screen.
Status: Zachary Quinto will co-executive produce and star as “the iconoclastic leader of this movement who can’t wait for the future to get here fast enough.”
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Originally published: 2014, Harper Voyager (UK)/Ecco (US)
Optioned for: Film (Netflix)
What it’s about: In this post-apocalyptic thriller, Malorie (Sandra Bullock) and her children are among the scattered survivors of an alien force that pushes humans to strange violence. Seeking sanctuary, Malorie takes her children on a harrowing journey twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears.
Status: Eric Heisserer (Arrival) penned the adaptation, which is expected to start production in August 2017.
Black Adam, from various comics
Originally published: 1945, Fawcett Comics
Optioned for: Film (DC Films)
What it’s about: The standalone film follows Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson), arch-nemesis of the superhero Shazam.
Status: In development.
The Black Company by Glen Cook
Originally published: 1984, Tor Books
Optioned for: Television (Boston Diva Productions/Phantom Four)
What it’s about: The Black Company begin their series as a tough, cynical unit who sell their skills to the highest bidder. However, when they learn that an ancient prophecy may be coming true, they have to reevaluate their choices, and most importantly, decide whether to forsake old loyalties. The Lady, who rules the Northern Empire, hires the Black Company for her own ends.
Status: Eliza Dushku and David Goyer’s production companies (respectively) are collaborating on the adaptation, with Dushku playing the pivotal role of The Lady.
Bodies by Si Spencer (writer) and Tula Lotay, Phil Winslade, Meghan Hetrick, and Dean Ormston (artists)
Originally published: 2014, Vertigo Comics
Optioned for: Television (Hulu)
What it’s about: This miniseries follows four detectives trying to solve four murder cases, all in London but in distinct time periods: the 1890s, the 1940s, 2014, and post-apocalyptic 2050.
Status: Amulet screenwriter Aron Coleite is developing Bodies with Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey’s Team Downey company.
Bone by Jeff Smith
Originally published: 1991, Cartoon Books
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros)
What it’s about: The series follows the three Bone cousins, Fone, Smiley, and Phoney Bone, after they’re run out of Boneville and have to make a new life for themselves in a forbidding forest. They’re soon caught up in an adventure with a young woman named Thorn, which is gradually revealed to be an epic high fantasy saga.
Status: Warner Bros is planning a trilogy of feature-length animated films: Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda, The Little Prince) will direct a script co-written with Adam Kline (Artemis Fowl).
Bone Street Rumba by Daniel José Older
Originally published: 2015, Roc
Optioned for: Film and Television (Roaring Virgin Productions)
What it’s about: Being a “halfie”—not quite dead, not quite alive—makes Carlos Delacruz a perfect soulcatcher for the Council of the Dead in New York City: He tracks down ghosts with unfinished business and keeps them from disturbing the balance between the living and the dead.
Status: Actress and producer Anika Noni Rose optioned Daniel José Older’s urban fantasy series in January 2015.
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
Originally published: 2017, Harper
Optioned for: Film (Stone Village Productions)
What it’s about: In this futuristic retelling of the Joan of Arc story, humanity has fled the radioactive surface of the Earth for CIEL, a mysterious hovering platform. Having evolved into hairless, sexless creatures who inscribe stories upon their skin, the surviving humans are galvanized by Joan, “a child-warrior who possesses a mysterious force that lives within her and communes with the earth.”
Status: Stone Village won the movie rights before the book even hit shelves, with Scott Steindorff (The Lincoln Lawyer) and Dylan Russell (Penelope) producing.
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
Originally published: 2017, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Optioned for: Film (Paramount)
What it’s about: Borne follows a young woman fighting to survive in desolate near-future city. The woman finds a green lumpish creature called Borne during a scavenging mission, and begins to realize that her new companion may be more than she first thought.
Status: Scott Rudin and Eli Bush, who are currently producing the film adaptation of VanderMeer’s Annihilation with Paramount, will also produce Borne.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Originally published: 1932, Chatto & Windus
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: Aldous Huxley’s scarily prescient vision of the future sees humans born in hatcheries and seduced by consumerism, free sex, and—when those don’t make them entirely happy—the hallucinogenic drug soma, which they can take to get away from it all. But soon a “savage” from the “reservation” threatens the World State.
Status: Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television will adapt Huxley’s iconic novel, with Grant Morrison and Bryan Taylor (Crank) serving as writers and executive producers. No word yet if it will be a miniseries or ongoing series. The last update was in late 2016.
Camelot, from every Arthurian legend ever
Optioned for: Television (Fox)
What it’s about: The legend of King Arthur, reimagined as a modern-day police procedural. Hoo boy. I’m just gonna post the synopsis: “When an ancient magic reawakens in modern-day Manhattan, a graffiti artist named Art must team with his best friend Lance and his ex, Gwen—an idealistic cop—in order to realize his destiny and fight back against the evil forces that threaten the city.”
Status: The Jackal Group’s Gail Berman (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Rocky Horror Picture Show reboot) and Joe Earley will oversee the project, written by Dan Frey and Ru Sommer (The Black List, Fox’s Saint Patrick) writing.
Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon
Originally published: 2015, Dial Books
Optioned for: Film (Walt Disney Company)
What it’s about: Ellen DeGeneres, along with her A Very Good Production partner Jeffrey Kleeman, will produce the story of a 12-year-old witch who travels to Castle Hangnail to become its new master. If she fails at being as wicked as expected, the castle will be decommissioned by the Board of Magic, with its various residents (including a hypochondriac fish and a minotaur afraid of the letter Q) dispersed into the non-magic world.
Status: Recently announced.
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Originally published: 2017, Spiegel & Grau
Optioned for: Television (Annapurna Television)
What it’s about: LaValle’s New York City fairy tale centers on new parents Apollo and Emma, who suspect that something may be unusual about their son Brian… (Read our review.)
Status: Annapurna Television, which is also producing the Coen brothers’ Western anthology series for Netflix, will adapt the novel. Annapurna’s Sue Naegle and Ali Krug will oversee development, with LaValle serving as a co-executive producer.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Originally published: 2015, Pan Macmillan
Optioned for: Film (Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate Pictures)
What it’s about: The last remnants of Earth escape their dying planet for a fully terraformed one… only to find the new world abandoned by humans and occupied by a very different sentient species.
Status: Film rights optioned in mid-2017.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (writer) and Robert Hack (artist)
Originally published: 2014, Archie Horror
Optioned for: Television (Netflix)
What it’s about: This new interpretation of Sabrina the Teenage Witch draws from the recent series reimagining her occult upbringing as a half-mortal, half-witch.
Status: Aguirre-Sacasa, who currently serves as showrunner on The CW’s Riverdale, penned the pilot; Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. TV are also involved. The series was originally being developed for The CW, but in late 2017, Netflix gave the series a two-season order. No release date yet, but early 2018 casting includes Doctor Who’s Michelle Gomez.
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
Originally published: 1970, Doubleday
Optioned for: Television (Skybound Entertainment)
What it’s about: Recovering from a loss of memory, Corwin discovers that he is a prince from Amber, one of the two “true” worlds—the other being the Courts of Chaos—waging war for control over the “shadow” worlds, including Earth.
Status: Robert Kirkman and David Alpert will adapt the ten-book series; no writers have been announced yet.
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
Originally published: 1987, Macmillan
Optioned for: Television (Amazon Studios)
What it’s about: The first book in Banks’ Culture series is the story of Horza, who is tasked by the conquering and warlike Idirans with recovering a Culture “Mind”—an A.I. that could help them wipe out the Culture.
Status: Amazon Studios has acquired the rights to Consider Phlebas, with the Estate of Iain M. Banks serving as executive producer. Dennis Kelly (Utopia, Matilda) will adapt the series, with Plan B Entertainment (World War Z) producing.
Cormoran Strike, from the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith
Originally published: 2013, Sphere Books
Optioned for: Television (BBC One/HBO)
What it’s about: In Galbraith’s (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling’s) mystery series, war veteran-turned-private detective Cormoran Strike (War and Peace‘s Tom Burke) copes with physical and psychological wounds while solving three complex cases that have stumped the police.
Status: Cormoran Strike will air in three separate event series: the three-hour The Cuckoo’s Calling, two-hour The Silkworm, and two-hour Career of Evil. (HBO and BBC One also worked together on the adaptation of Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.) Filming began in fall 2016 in London.
Crosswind by Gail Simone (writer) and Cat Staggs (artist)
Originally published: 2017, Image Comics
Optioned for: Television (eOne)
What it’s about: “A slick and ruthless Chicago hitman. A smart but downtrodden Seattle housewife. When an inexplicable event strikes these two random strangers, their bodies, souls, and lives are switched to potentially deadly effect. It’s Freaky Friday meets Goodfellas!”
Status: The adaptation is one of Vanessa Piazza’s (Lost Girl, Dark Matter) major projects in her new multi-year producing partnership with eOne. Simone wrote the pilot and will serve as an executive producer, with Staggs serving as a consulting producer.
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Originally published: 2015, Tor Books
Optioned for: Film (G-BASE)
What it’s about: Traveler-magician Kell’s official job is to deliver correspondence between the parallel Londons, but his unofficial job is smuggling visitors to see the flourishing magic of Red London, or the eerie control of White London (though no one is allowed in Black London). When a thief from boring Grey London robs, saves, and then joins Kell, he discovers the perilous magic at the root of everything.
Status: While the original plans for the adaptation was a limited series along the lines of Game of Thrones, the project changed direction in 2017: Schwab will be a producer on the movie version of the first book, with the other two volumes serving as material for a potential franchise.
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
Originally published: 1987, Grand Central Publishing
Optioned for: Television (TBD)
What it’s about: Lilith’s Brood is a trilogy, in which the alien Oankali save humans from themselves, but for a price (Dawn); some humans agree to mate and evolve with the Oankali, while others revolt (Adulthood Rites); and there emerges a new generation of human-Oankali hybrids (Imago).
Status: While producer Allen Bain acquired the TV rights in 2015, that adaptation seems to have fallen through. As of mid-2017, director Ava DuVernay (A Wrinkle in Time) is helming the new adaptation alongside producer Charles D. King’s (Fences) Macro Ventures and TV writer Victoria Mahoney (Misfits). Right now it seems as if only Dawn is in development.
Deadly Class by Rick Remender (writer) and Wes Craig (artist)
Originally published: 2014, Image Comics
Optioned for: Television (Syfy/Sony Pictures TV)
What it’s about: High school intrigue—first love, gossip, cliques, growing up—at a boarding school for assassins in 1987 San Francisco.
Status: The Russo brothers (directors of the last two Captain America movies) are adapting the shockingly vicious series for the small screen. Syfy gave the series a pilot order in late 2017.
Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff
Originally published: 2013, First Second Books
Optioned for: Film (Disney)
What it’s about: Like the female Indiana Jones and trained in 47 styles of swordfighting, Delilah Dirk breaks out of a Turkish prison and picks up a mild-mannered lieutenant, Selim, as her sidekick for fighting pirates and the like.
Status: Disney is developing a live-action adaptation that could lead to a diverse franchise built on female empowerment.
Doctor Doom by various writers and artists
Originally published: 1962, Marvel Comics
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: No word yet on whether this will be a standalone film or if Doctor Doom will get to play off the Fantastic Four.
Status: Legion creator and executive producer Noah Hawley announced at SDCC 2017 that he was developing the film, reportedly to direct.
Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
Originally published: 1968, Ballantine Books
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros.)
What it’s about: The possible franchise series would begin with the first book, Dragonflight, which sees orphaned noble Lessa hiding out as a lowly servant after the assassination of her family. But as her telepathic powers grow, a dragonrider recognizes her potential to become the strongest Weyrwoman (that is, the female leader in a Weyr, or group of dragons) in recent history.
Status: As of late 2014, the studio had landed a screenwriter, but no update since then.
Dune by Frank Herbert
Originally published: 1965, Chilton Books
Optioned for: Film and Television (Legendary Entertainment)
What it’s about: Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, whose family accepts stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the coveted “spice” in the universe. After a betrayal, Paul leads a rebellion to restore his family’s control over Arrakis.
Status: Legendary Entertainment has reached an agreement with the Frank Herbert estate in which it has acquired the film and television rights to Dune. The agreement calls for the development and production of possible film and TV projects for a global audience. Brian Herbert has confirmed that Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve will helm the project.
Endurance: My Year in Space and Our Journey to Mars by Scott Kelly
Originally published: 2017, Knopf
Optioned for: Film (Sony Pictures)
What it’s about: Astronaut Scott Kelly’s memoir will detail his year spent in space, as well as the post-return to Earth experiments conducted on him and his twin brother and fellow astronaut Mark Kelly to help guide NASA’s plans for eventual travel to Mars.
Status: Sony Pictures picked up the competitive rights to the book; both Kelly brothers will serve as co-executive producers.
Extreme Universe, from various titles by Rob Liefeld
Originally published: 1992, Image Comics
Optioned for: Film (Fundamental Films)
What it’s about: Spanning nine comic-book titles and nearly 100 characters, Liefeld’s universe includes such superheroes as Bloodstrike, Brigade, Lethal, Re-Gex, Cybrid, Bloodwulf, Battlestone, Kaboom, and Nitro-Gen.
Status: Liefeld will work with Akiva Goldsman and Graham King to develop the property, with the potential opportunity to make it into a film franchise.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Originally published: 2015, Orbit Books
Optioned for: Television (TNT)
What it’s about: The series follows three women who possess the ability to control the civilization-causing earthquakes (the eponymous “fifth season”) that threaten their world… but they can also create them. Damaya is training to serve the Empire; ambitious Syenite is ordered to breed with her frighteningly powerful mentor; and Essun is searching for the husband who murdered her son and kidnapped her daughter mere hours after the last Season.
Status: Leigh Dana Jackson (Sleepy Hollow, Helix) will adapt the first installment of Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy.
The Final Six by Alexandra Monir
Originally published: TBD, HarperCollins
Optioned for: Film (Sony Pictures)
What it’s about: The United Nations teams up with international space agencies to create an unprecedented coalition of six intrepid teenagers who will establish humanity’s first settlement on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Not much else is known, but the book will have themes of global unity, leadership, and environmentalism.
Status: Sony optioned the rights based on the first few chapters alone; HarperCollins recently won publishing rights. Josh Bratman at Immersive Pictures is attached to produce.
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
Originally published: 1984, McClelland & Stewart
Optioned for: Television (Temple Street)
What it’s about: Five people invited to Fionavar (the first of all worlds), ostensibly for the celebration of the king, discover that each of them has a role to play in the war that is brewing.
Status: Temple Street, the production company behind Orphan Black, will bring the series to television.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Originally published: 1974, St. Martin’s Press
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros.)
What it’s about: Channing Tatum has signed on to star as William Mandella, a soldier fighting a fearsome enemy, only to (thanks to time dilation) return to a world he doesn’t recognize.
Status: The project was initially announced in 2015. Screenwriter Jon Spaihts provided an update in late 2016, saying that the adaptation was still happening but had been delayed by the production of his film Passengers.
Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman (writer) and Skottie Young (illustrator)
Originally published: 2013, HarperCollins
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: Edgar Wright will direct a part-live action, part-animated adaptation (written by Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie) of Gaiman’s children’s book. Johnny Depp will star as a father who, with his son, gets caught up in issues of time travel and breakfast cereal.
Status: Currently the aforementioned folks are in negotiations.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Originally published: 1951, Gnome Press
Optioned for: Television (HBO)
What it’s about: Foreseeing the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, mathematician Hari Sheldon creates a foundation of artists, academics, and engineers to preserve and expand on humanity’s knowledge before said fall.
Status: At a 2015 Paley Center panel, Jonathan Nolan said he was still “incredibly excited” about the adaptation and that he was in talks with Robyn Asimov, Isaac’s daughter, about the project. He mentioned that it would be “coming together,” but didn’t give any specifics. No word how the success of Westworld affects the likelihood of the Foundation adaptation, but something to consider.
Untitled Game of Thrones Spinoff, from A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
Originally published: 1996, Bantam Books
Optioned for: Television (HBO)
What it’s about: Not much is known yet, but the projects in development will explore different time periods in Westeros, meaning they could be prequels or spinoffs, but they won’t continue the storylines of established characters. (Which means no Dunk & Egg or Robert’s Rebellion.) Martin prefers the term “successor show”; his latest update, from May 2017.
Status: HBO and Martin are working with five different writers (Max Borenstein, Jane Goldman, Brian Helgeland, Carly Wray, and one unnamed) to create potential spinoffs inspired by Martin’s series. The author will serve as executive producer on whichever project(s) get picked up; the same goes for Game of Thrones co-creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Originally published: 1977, St. Martin’s Press
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: The discovery of Gateway, a space station belonging to the Heechee alien race, in a hollow asteroid leads to a kind of gold rush for the human race, as they endeavor to learn more about the Heechee and turn these artifacts into fortunes.
Status: Syfy announced in 2015 its intention to adapt the novel to series, with David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) revising a pilot script written by Josh Pate (Falling Skies).
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Originally published: 2016, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Optioned for: Film (Fox Animation)
What it’s about: Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to an unseen witch. But when delivering a baby to waiting families on her yearly journey, witch Xan accidentally feeds moonlight to the infant, filling her with magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own, with the help of a wise swamp monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon.
Status: Kubo and the Two Strings co-writer Marc Haimes is adapting Barnhill’s book as a live-action/animation-hybrid film.
The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
Originally published: 2018, Penguin Random House
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: Not much information is available about the book except that it’s described by Deadline as “a sci-fi time travel procedural.” Read our review of Sweterlitsch’s first novel, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, for an idea of his work.
Status: District 9 and Elysium’s Neill Blomkamp signed on to write and direct the film adaptationeven before the novel was published.
Gotham City Sirens by Paul Dini (writer) and Guillem March (artist)
Originally published: 2009, DC Comics
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros/DC Films)
What it’s about: The limited-run comic followed the trio of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman cavorting around Gotham City.
Status: At SDCC 2017, director David Ayer discussed why the project was taking precedence over Suicide Squad 2. Margot Robbie will reprise her role as Harley Quinn; no word yet on casting the other two villains.
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
Originally published: 2015, Saga Press
Optioned for: Film (DMG Entertainment)
What it’s about: Bandit Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu, son of a deposed duke, become friends when fighting to overthrow the emperor. But once the throne is available for the taking, they become leaders of opposing factions, with very different views on the best way to run the world.
Status: DMG Entertainment has acquired the film and licensing rights to the entire Dandelion Dynasty series into a film series.
Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
Originally published: 2014, Penguin Books
Optioned for: Film (New Regency)
What it’s about: Austin Szerba struggles with confusing sexual feelings for both his best friend and his girlfriend while preying mantises hatch in his Iowa town and threaten to take over the world.
Status: Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) is on board to direct. New Regency is in final negotiations after a bidding war against Netflix and others; the project had previously been set up at Sony.
Happiness Is for Humans by P.Z. Reizin
Originally published: TBA, Grand Central Publishing (US) and Sphere Fiction (UK)
Optioned for: Film (Fox 2000/Working Title)
What it’s about: Described as “Sleepless in Seattle meets Her,” the novel follows a pair of AIs who attempt matchmaking with two lovelorn humans.
Status: Fox 2000, which adapted John Green’s Paper Towns and Nicholas Sparks’ The Longest Ride for the big screen, acquired film rights to Reizin’s partial manuscript before the London Book Fair in 2016. Fox 2000 is partnering with Working Title to adapt the novel.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Originally published: 1959, Viking
Optioned for: Television (Amblin TV/Netflix)
What it’s about: Shirley Jackson’s famous ghost story involves a summer at the eponymous house, as a doctor invites three strangers there to investigate the property’s supposed supernatural possession.
Status: Netflix has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to the as-yet untitled series, a modern reimagining of The Haunting of Hill House.
HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Originally published: 2016, Tor Books
Optioned for: Television (Warner Bros.)
What it’s about: The residents of Black Spring use apps and video surveillance to keep track of their resident witch, who in turn keeps them trapped in Black Spring. But when a group of teenage boys want to broadcast the existence of Katherine van Wyler outside of their tiny town, they risk unleashing an ancient and dangerous magic.
Status: Not much information beyond the initial announcement, but in the meantime, delve into the creepiness of Black Spring by reading an excerpt.
The Hidden Girl, from “The Hidden Girl” by Ken Liu
Originally published: 2017, TBA
Optioned for: Film (Studio 8)
What it’s about: Described as Interstellar meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, “The Hidden Girl” follows a group of assassins who can cross between dimensions. And that’s all we know about it so far!
Status: Film rights were optioned before Liu’s story was even published; it will appear in the 2017 anthology The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois. Find out more about the film adaptation.
The Hike by Drew Magary
Originally published: 2016, Viking
Optioned for: Television (IM Global Television)
What it’s about: On a business trip in rural Pennsylvania, suburban family man Ben decides to take a short hike before his dinner meeting… only to find himself lost in the woods, his path crossed by a talking crab, a futuristic hovercraft, a 16th-century Spanish explorer, and even more surreal encounters.
Status: David S. Goyer (Batman v Superman) is producing the show, with Magary adapting his novel to pilot.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Originally Published: 1995, Scholastic UK/1996, Alfred A. Knopf
Optioned for: Television (BBC One)
What it’s about: Lyra, an orphan, and her trusty dæmon Pan travel through parallel universes in order to learn the truth about her parents, prophecies about Lyra’s place in the fight against celestial beings, and the meaning behind the mysterious Dust.
Status: The BBC is partnering with New Line Cinema (who produced the movie version of The Golden Compass in 2007) to adapt all three books for television, with author Philip Pullman drawing comparisons to Game of Thrones and The Wire. Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) will write the teleplay, under the watch of producers Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner (Doctor Who). Bad Wolf TV tweeted an update in early 2018, after wrapping production on A Discovery of Witches, saying that the HDM adaptation was next up.
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
Originally published: 2014, Quirk Books
Optioned for: Television (Fox)
What it’s about: The novel follows five employees at the ORSK furniture superstore, as they volunteer to take an all-nighter shift to find out what’s behind the mysterious damage at their store. Fox’s supernatural dramedy (co-written by The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz and produced by Charlie Kaufman) seems to be building out this story into more serialized form, focusing on slacker protagonist Amy.
Status: No update yet.
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer
Originally published: TBA, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Optioned for: Film (Netflix)
What it’s about: VanderMeer describes the novel, inspired by our dystopian present, as “a taut thriller set in the Pacific Northwest about a simple act of turning a key in the door of a storage unit, and changing someone’s life forever.”
Status: Netflix is nearing a deal to nab the movie rights to VanderMeer’s recently-announced novel.
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Originally published: 2018, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Optioned for: Film, 20th Century Fox
What it’s about: A retelling of the Donner Party tragedy, but with zombies.
Status: 20th Century Fox snapped up the film rights to former CIA analyst Katsu’s book proposal—she is currently writing the novel—with Luke Scott (The Martian) attached to direct the film.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Originally published: 1989, Doubleday
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: On the eve of armageddon brought about by galactic war, seven pilgrims set out to the Shrike, hidden in the Valley of Time Tombs. Each has a riddle, a hope, and a secret.
Status: Bradley Cooper, who has been trying to adapt the novel for years, is now working with Syfy to adapt the novel into an “event series” (i.e., miniseries). Itamar Moses (Boardwalk Empire) is set to write the screenplay.
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Originally published: 2015, Knopf
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros./Plan B Entertainment)
What it’s about: Told through a series of letters, chat conversations, and dossiers, a teenage hacker and her pilot ex must struggle with their broken relationship while unearthing an interstellar conspiracy.
Status: No update since the first announcement in 2015.
Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice
Originally published: 1976, Knopf
Optioned for: Film (Universal Pictures)
What it’s about: Louis de Pointe du Lac tells his life story to a reporter—but as life stories go, it’s a doozy, spanning over two centuries of being a vampire alongside his maker Lestat and their bloodthirsty charge Claudia.
Status: For a long time the rumors were that Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) was working on a movie adaptation that combined the plots of The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. Then Boone clarified in 2016 that he was remaking Interview, by sharing a page from the script on Instagram. He has also hinted that Jared Leto could play Lestat, though that has not been confirmed.
Jake Ellis, from Who Is Jake Ellis? by Nathan Edmondson
Originally published: 2011, Image Comics
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: Silas’ life is turned upside-down when he discovers that the voice in his head—an entire personality named Jake Ellis—is a result of human experimentation. With Jake Ellis’ help, Silas flees the people chasing him as he tries to learn what happened to him. (In the comics, Silas was former CIA analyst-turned-criminal Jon Moore; it’s unclear if the film will stick to this original background.)
Status: Josh Mond (James White) will direct the adaptation, taking over for David Yates; they’re currently looking for a screenwriter.
Untitled Joker Origin Story, from various DC Comics
Originally published: 1940, DC Comics
Optioned for: Film (DC Films/Warner Bros)
What it’s about: What would it be about? As Polygon argues, 75 years of comics “has yet to produce an origin story for the Joker that anyone gives a good goddamn about.” It’s unclear which established story the creative team will pull from.
Status: Todd Phillips (The Hangover) is set to co-write a script with Scott Silver (8 Mile), with Phillips directing alongside Martin Scorsese producing.
Untitled Joker/Harley Quinn Love Story, from various DC Comics
Originally published: 1993, DC Comics
Optioned for: Film (DC Films/Warner Bros)
What it’s about: Described as “an insane and twisted love story. When Harry Met Sally on benzedrine.”
Status: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love and This Is Us) are in final negotiations to write and direct the movie, to be released after Suicide Squad 2.
Judge Dredd: Mega City One, from Judge Dredd by John Wagner (writer) and Carlos Ezquerra (artist)
Originally published: 1977, Rebellion
Optioned for: Television (IM Global Television)
What it’s about: The ensemble drama follows a team of Judges as they deal with crime in the future-shocked megalopolis of the 22nd century.
Status: IM Global Television president Mark Stern, who developed Battlestar Galactica and other Syfy series, will serve as executive producer.
The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss
Originally published: 2007, DAW Books
Optioned for: Film, Television, & Video Games (Lionsgate/Showtime)
What it’s about: In Rothfuss’ fantasy trilogy—the first two books of which have been published—adventurer and musician Kvothe tells his life story, with the majority of the series made up by the flashbacks.
Status: Lionsgate plans to adapt the books into movies and a TV series and tie-in video games… and perhaps eventually for the stage? At any rate, it’s in good hands: Hamilton‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda will serve as creative producer overseeing this burgeoning franchise, and John Rogers will serve as showrunner of the TV series. In late 2017, Showtime announced that it would air the TV series, which will take place a generation before the events of Name of the Wind and follow “a pair of wandering performers on their adventures through the unique and startling world of Temerant.” Early 2018 brought word that Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Evil Dead) would direct the feature film adaptation of The Name of the Wind.
The Last Girl by Joe Hart
Originally published: 2016, Thomas & Mercer
Optioned for: Television (Amazon Studios)
What it’s about: Twenty-five years after a worldwide epidemic reduced the female birth population from 50 percent to 1 percent, an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women. Held captive in a scientific facility looking for the cure, Zoey seeks to escape beyond the walls of the facility rather than be subjected to a potentially fatal round of experiments. But after being isolated from her family for two decades, Zoey has no idea what kind of world awaits her outside of the walls of her prison.
Status: According to Publishers Marketplace, Amazon Studios has nabbed the TV rights to Hart’s dystopian novel.
The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
Originally published: 2012, Quirk Books
Optioned for: Television (CBS)
What it’s about: Asteroid 2011GV1 is hurtling toward Earth, the human race has six months left to live, people are leaving their jobs to hole up in churches to pray, and yet Detective Hank Palace is still solving murders.
Status: No updates since the original announcement in 2012, so it’s likely in development hell.
Lazarus by Greg Rucka (writer) and Michael Lark (artist)
Originally published: 2013, Image Comics
Optioned for: Television (Amazon Studios)
What it’s about: In an alternate near future, the world has been divided up among 16 rival families ruling in a dystopian feudal system. The series follows Forever Carlyle, a military leader for the Carlyle family, who questions her identity in this nature-versus-nurture future.
Status: Rucka, who is adapting the comic, and Lark will co-produce with Angela Cheng Caplan.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore (writer) and Kevin O’Neill (artist)
Originally published: 1999, DC Comics
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: The ongoing comic book series teams up a bevy of Victorian characters from literature—including Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man—to fight various nasties.
Status: The 2003 movie adaptation starring Sean Connery tanked, but Fox is rebooting itself over a decade later. No cast has yet been announced.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Originally published: 1969, Ace Books
Optioned for: Television (Critical Content)
What it’s about: The novel follows Genly Ai, who travels from Terra to the planet Gethen (a.k.a. “Winter”), to try and convince the planet’s nations to join the Ekumen, a peaceful confederation of planets. But as he explores Gethenian culture, Ai is stymied by both the Gethenians’ ambisexuality—the androgynous inhabitants can shift their gender according to mating rituals—as well as the planet’s politics.
Status: Limitless producers Tom Forman, Andrew Marcus, and Raymond Ricord will oversee the adaptation; no writer has yet been announced.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Originally published: 2006, Bantam Spectra
Optioned for: Television (TBA)
What it’s about: Elite con artists the Gentleman Bastards—counting among their ranks their leader Father Chains and his protege Locke Lamora—rob the rich in the Venice-like city of Camorr on a distant planet. As Locke comes of age, the Gentleman Bastards find themselves fighting the mysterious Gray King, looking to take over the criminal underworld.
Status: Warner Bros. had acquired the film rights shortly after the book’s release in 2006, but those seem to have lapsed. In 2014, TV writer Ryan Condal (The Sixth Gun) claimed that he was writing a pilot; Lynch neither confirmed nor denied that he was confirming or denying the news.
Liking What You See: A Documentary by Ted Chiang
Originally published: 2002, Tor Books
Optioned for: Television (AMC)
What it’s about: Presented in the form of a documentary, Chiang’s novella features arguments for and against calliagnosia, a simple (and reversible) procedure that removes ingrained biases against certain appearances.
Status: Arrival (based on Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”) screenwriter Eric Heisserer announced on Twitter that he’ll be adapting Liking What You See (from the same collection, Stories of Your Life and Others) for AMC.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Originally published: 2008, Tor Books
Optioned for: Film (Paramount Pictures)
What it’s about: Cory Doctorow’s modern techno-thriller follows a 17-year-old hacker in the wrong place at the wrong time following a terrorist attack on San Francisco, and how he and his friends must fend for themselves when their home becomes a police state.
Status: In 2015, Paramount Pictures acquired Cory Doctorow’s hacker series as its own “reality-based” YA franchise; no update since then.
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu
Originally published: 2013, Angry Robot Books
Optioned for: Television (ABC)
What it’s about: IT consultant Roen Tan must become a secret agent when he’s taken over by an ancient alien named Tao. He soon learns that whether he likes it or not, he’s part of a terrifying alien civil war—and one side is quite willing to wipe humanity out in order to win. Roen must fight to save his species, while also training to become a real secret agent.
Status: Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas, the executive producers behind Agent Carter, are developing the series with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter‘s Chris Dingess. Chu will serve as a consultant.
Locke & Key by Joe Hill
Originally published: 2008, IDW Publishing
Optioned for: Television (Hulu)
What it’s about: After the gruesome murder of their father/husband, the Locke family moves in to their family estate on the island of Lovecraft, Massachusetts. As the Locke boys mourn their father, they also discover a set of magical keys that open strange doors in the house… but that also draw out creatures who’ve been looking for those locks and keys.
Status: Locke & Key has gone through a number of failed adaptations, from a Dimension Films movie to a TV series—that Fox greenlit in 2011, only to pass on—to a movie trilogy from Universal Pictures. Hulu has ordered a pilot written by Hill, with Carlton Cuse (Lost, Bates Motel) producing and Andy Muschietti (It) directing the pilot.
Lockwood & Co. by Jonathan Stroud
Originally published: 2013, Disney-Hyperion
Optioned for: Television (Big Talk Productions)
What it’s about: The YA series, described as “Ghostbusters meets Sherlock Holmes,” takes place in an alternate-universe London where young people with the ability to perceive ghosts and supernatural creatures set up rival detective agencies. The most ramshackle of these is Lockwood & Co.
Status: London’s Big Talk Productions has optioned the TV rights to the Lockwood & Co. series.
Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
Originally published: 1967, Dial Press
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros.)
What it’s about: In the dystopian future of 2116, the population lives only to 21; on citizens’ Lastdays, they are executed, or those who attempt to escape are run down by Sandmen. Logan-5, a Sandman, plans to ring in his 21st birthday by tracking down the rumored Sanctuary that takes in runners; instead, he becomes sympathetic to their cause.
Status: The 1976 movie adaptation became a cult classic but changed some key details (like raising the age from 21 to 30). Joel Silver, Simon Kinberg, and Ryan Condal are teaming up on a new film that will hew closer to the original novel.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Originally published: 1967, Doubleday
Optioned for: Television (Universal Cable Productions)
What it’s about: Generations after the survivors of a crashed spaceship took on the identities and powers of deities on their new planet, a former “god” tries to upend the system.
Status: Ashley Miller (X-Men) will write the adaptation and exec produce; Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead) and Valhalla Entertainment will also produce.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Originally published: 1954, Allen & Unwin
Optioned for: Television (Warner Bros. Television/Amazon Studios)
What it’s about: The Fellowship of the Ring (made up of hobbits, elves, dwarves, humans, and more) must take the One Ring to Mount Doom before it falls into the hands of the evil Sauron.
Status: Amazon Studios will adapt the trilogy into an epic fantasy TV series alongside the Tolkien Estate and Trust as well as New Line Cinema. According to the press release in late 2017, the series will also explore “new storylines” preceding The Fellowship of the Ring.
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
Originally published: 2016, HarperCollins
Optioned for: Television (HBO)
What it’s about: Searching for his missing father, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner, accompanied by his Uncle George and childhood friend Letitia, encounters both “the mundane terrors of white America” and malevolent, otherworldly forces.
Status: Jordan Peele (Get Out) and J.J. Abrams will serve as executive producers along with Misha Green (Underground), who will write the pilot and serve as showrunner.
Lumberjanes by Shannon Watters (writer), Grace Ellis (writer), Brooke A. Allen (artist), and Noelle Stevenson (writer)
Originally published: 2014, Boom! Studios
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: Boom! Studios describes its beloved series as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Gravity Falls and features five butt-kicking, rad teenage girls wailing on monsters and solving a mystery with the whole world at stake.”
Status: Emily Carmichael (Powerhouse) will direct the adaptation.
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
Originally published: 2015, Tor Books/Gollancz
Optioned for: Television (CBS)
What it’s about: In 2110, fifty years after the Moon’s colonization, the top ruling families—the Five Dragons—are intermarrying, poisoning, sabotaging, and battling for control of the Moon.
Status: CBS Television Studios won the bidding war over adaptation rights in late 2015. In the meantime, we made a handy chart showing you how everyone is related in this drama some are likening to “Game of Thrones on the Moon.”
MaddAddam, from The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Originally published: 2003, Doubleday/Bloomsbury
Optioned for: Television (Paramount TV/Anonymous Content)
What it’s about: The speculative fiction trilogy follows the 21st-century human race before and after the Waterless Flood, brought about by corporations’ control and an overabundance of genetically-engineered organisms. The latter two books look at the survivors of the Flood and how they rebuild society.
Status: The adaptation that Darren Aronofsky was planning to helm for HBO was declared dead in 2016. In 2018, Paramount TV and Anonymous Content won the bidding war for television rights to Atwood’s series.
Meg by Steve Alten
Originally published: 1997, Bantam Books
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros/Gravity Pictures)
What it’s about: When a deep-sea submersible is stuck in a trench at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean after an attack by a prehistoric shark called the Megalodon, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) must rescue the crew. Why is he the best man for the job? Because he’s the only one who has encountered this creature before.
Status: Comes to theaters March 2, 2018. Check out the first production photo.
Mika Model, from “Mika Model” by Paolo Bacigalupi
Originally published: 2016, Slate
Optioned for: Film (Netflix)
What it’s about: Bacigalupi’s short story “Mika Model,” written as part of Slate’s Future Tense initiative, has drawn comparisons to Ex Machina for its examination of whether a robot (a sex bot, no less) is capable of murder. Detective Rivera finds himself grappling not only with his attraction to the fantasy-in-the-synthetic-flesh, but also with issues of morality and justice.
Status: Up-and-comer David Weil is in talks to adapt the screenplay, as the subject matter matches one of his spec screenplays that made it onto the 2014 Hit List. Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Real Steel) will produce.
Millarworld comics by Mark Millar
Originally published: 2004-present, Millarworld
Optioned for: Television & Film (Netflix)
What it’s about: This collective universe contains Millar’s titles including Kick-Ass, Superior, American Jesus, Empress, Huck, and more.
Status: Netflix has snapped up the rights to the rest of the Millarworld titles not already adapted. According to THR, Netflix could mine properties like Reborn, MPH, and Jupiter’s Legacy.
The Monolith by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (writers) and Phil Winslade (artist)
Originally published: 2004, Image Comics
Optioned for: Film (Lionsgate)
What it’s about: In this modern-day retelling of the golem legend, ex-junkie Alice Cohen inherits a Brooklyn house from her grandmother, only to discover a diary from the 1930s detailing the creation of a monster that would avenge a good man’s death.
Status: Dave Wilson (creative director of the studio that made Deadpool) will direct a screenplay by Barnett Brettler.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare (writers) and Natacha Bustos (illustrator)
Originally published: 2015, Marvel Comics
Optioned for: Television (Marvel Animation/Disney Channels Worldwide)
What it’s about: Nine-year-old super-genius/Inhuman Lunella Lafayette teams up with her crimson dinosaur to save the day.
Status: Laurence Fishburne’s (black-ish, grown-ish) Cinema Gypsy Productions is developing the comic as an animated series, though it’s unclear if it will wind up on Disney Channel, Disney XD, or Disney Junior.
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Originally published: 1987, Gollancz
Optioned for: Film (Narrativia)
What it’s about: Hapless Mort lives up to his name when he becomes the apprentice to Death. But he is torn between helping his master usher souls into the afterlife and the desire to change destiny for pretty princesses and others called before their time.
Status: Recently announced at Pratchett’s memorial. Terry Rossio (Aladdin, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) will write the adapted screenplay.
Mouse Guard by David Peterson
Originally published: 2006, Archaia Studios Press
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: Peterson’s graphic novel series follows the Mouse Guard, a brotherhood of medieval mice in an alternate-history world without humans, protecting their fellow mice from predators.
Status: Rogue One screenwriter Gary Whitta will pen the adaptation, with War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves producing. The movie will employ motion-capture technology to try to mimic the art and feel of Peterson’s story.
MPH by Mark Millar (writer) and Duncan Fegredo (artist)
Originally published: 2015, Image Comics
Optioned for: Film, TBD
What it’s about: “When a group of hard-luck teens in Motor City stumble upon a street drug called MPH, they gain the power of super speed. Will they use it to save the world? Hell no! Not when there’s dolla, dolla bills to be had, y’all.”
Status: Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, G.I. Joe) optioned the film rights in 2014 before the first issue was published, but there have been no major updates since.
The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
Originally published: 2017, Tor.com Publishing
Optioned for: Film (Welle Entertainment)
What it’s about: For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another “Molly” is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction. Any instance of bleeding—a scrape, a scuffle, and every month for a couple of harrowing days. And so, she has been trained in how to destroy the Mollys first. She finds herself wondering whether it’s better to kill herself or be killed by the inescapable horde of…herself.
Status: No word on screenwriting or casting yet, but Welle’s Cathy Schulman will produce with Krishnan Menon and Adam Stone of Phenomenon Entertainment. Brendan Deneen and the book’s editor, Carl Engle-Laird, will serve as executive producers.
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Originally published: 1934, Collins Crime Club
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Peña, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., and others form the ensemble for Christie’s famous mystery about Hercule Poirot’s attempts to solve a murder aboard the Orient Express, with the murderer among the passengers.
Status: Kenneth Branagh will direct and costar as Poirot.
Needle in a Timestack, from “Needle in a Timestack” by Robert Silverberg
Originally published: 1983, Playboy
Optioned for: Film (Miramax)
What it’s about: Silverberg’s short story follows “a devoted husband who will stop at nothing to save his marriage when it is destroyed by a time traveling rival.”
Status: 12 Years a Slave producer John Ridley will write and direct the adaptation.
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Originally published: 1984, Ace
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: Gibson’s pioneering cyberpunk novel follows hacker Henry Dorsett Case, cut off from The Matrix after he steals from his employers. But a new job could give him back that access… assuming he can hack an AI orbiting Earth.
Status: Deadpool director Tim Miller will helm the adaptation, with Simon Kinberg producing. No writer has yet been set.
Newsflesh by Mira Grant
Originally published: 2010, Orbit Books
Optioned for: Film (Electric Entertainment)
What it’s about: In 2040, the post-zombie generation is all infected with a miracle-cure-turned-infection that will cause them to amplify at death, used to routine blood tests and carrying a gun to ward off wild undead, and get all their news from bloggers like the After the End Times. The first book, Feed, sees Georgia and Shaun Mason following the Republican senator on the campaign trail, though they hit a few zombie-shaped stumbling blocks. Learn more about the world of Newsflesh here.
Status: The rights were optioned in 2012, but there doesn’t seem to have been much movement made on the project so far. We want to see the Masons move from the computer screen to the silver screen!
Nightflyers by George R.R. Martin
Originally published: 1980, St. Martin’s Press
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: Martin’s sci-fi novella follows a crew of explorers on a sentient spaceship, who find their rendezvous with an alien ship possibly derailed by the Nightflyer’s own mission.
Status: Syfy is adapting the novella for television, with the screenwriter of the 1987 film adaptation on board as a producer. Jeff Buhler (Jacob’s Ladder) penned the pilot; Martin will not be involved with the TV series, due to his overall deal at HBO. Syfy announced an official series order in early 2018.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
Originally published: 2013, William Morrow
Optioned for: Television (AMC)
What it’s about: In his 1938 Rolls Royce-Wraith with the license plate NOS4A2, Charles Talent Manx picks up children and transports them to the sinister Christmasland. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, Victoria McQueen is the Manx’s only victim to have escaped… until he picks up his next victim, her son.
Status: AMC is using its “script-to-series” model to develop the series under showrunner Jami O’Brien (Hell on Wheels, Fear the Walking Dead), in which the network opens writers’ rooms to develop the pilot and several scripts, considering the potential for a first season, before deciding on a straight-to-series order.
October Daye by Seanan McGuire
Originally published: 2009, DAW
Optioned for: Television (Kung Fu Monkey Productions)
What it’s about: After being cursed by someone from the world of Fae, changeling October Daye is ready to embrace only the human half of her heritage. But when she gets geased into investigating a murdered fae, she must return to the kingdom of Fae, hidden just beneath the surface of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Status: The film rights were acquired in 2013, but as of 2014, McGuire had no updates to share on the project. In a recent column, Foz Meadows made the case for adapting the October Daye books—but as a TV series. As it turns out, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries writer Margaret Dunlap is adapting the series for television, but as she explained in a recent podcast, it’s a slow process. McGuire provided a brief update in 2017 that the rights had been licensed “and the people who have them are looking for a network.”
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Originally published: 2005, Tor Books
Optioned for: Film (Netflix)
What it’s about: Good news: Humanity finally made it to the stars. Bad news: Humans have to fight aliens for the few habitable planets. As far as the the Colonial Defense Force is concerned, the older the soldiers, the better. So, on his 75th birthday, John Perry enlists, hoping to make it two years in exchange for a homestead on a hard-won planet. But the actual fight is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger.
Status: Netflix acquired the movie rights in late 2017. Scalzi will serve as an executive producer.
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Originally published: 2014, 47North
Optioned for: Movie (Walt Disney Company)
What it’s about: After graduating from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony Twill is heartbroken when she’s assigned an apprenticeship with paper magic instead of her true love, metal magic. And once she bonds to paper, she won’t be able to do any other magic. But as she finds herself warming up to bespelling paper, she also discovers forbidden, dark magic, at great price.
Status: Producer Allison Shearmur (The Hunger Games, Rogue One) has picked up the project for Disney.
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Originally published: 2010, Ballantine Books
Optioned for: Television (Fox)
What it’s about: Cronin’s trilogy takes place over about a century, and combines elements of a tense conspiracy thriller, a post-apocalyptic horror, and a vampire tale, while focusing on the young girl who is the last hope for humanity.
Status: Fox ordered a pilot for The Passage in early 2017. Ridley Scott’s production company, Scott Free, has been working with Fox, Friday Night Lights’ Liz Helden, and Matt Reeves (director of Cloverfield and Let Me In) to adapt the book, with Cronin as a co-producer. The pilot was retooled in early 2018, replacing key supporting characters with new ones, and tweaking the premise.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Originally published: 1890, Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine
Optioned for: Film (Lionsgate)
What it’s about: Dorian Gray sells his soul for eternal youth, leading an endlessly hedonistic existence while the eponymous portrait ages and decays, recording his every sin.
Status: Experimental rock multi-instrumentalist St. Vincent (who made her filmmaking debut as part of the female-driven XX horror anthology) will direct a genderbent adaptation starring a female Dorian.
Princeless by Jeremy Whitley (writer) and Mia Goodwin (artist)
Originally published: 2014, Action Lab
Optioned for: Film (Sony Pictures)
What it’s about: Princess Adrienne Ashe never wanted her royal pedigree, or the obligations it brings. But her parents expect her to play out a typical princess narrative, so they lock her in a tower on the eve of her 16th birthday, to await rescue by a handsome prince. Instead, Adrienne decides to rescue herself.
Status: Sony acquired the film rights in 2017.
Project 13, from Superman #189 by Joe Kelly (writer) and Dwayne Turner (artist)
Originally published: 2003, DC Comics
Optioned for: Television (The CW)
What it’s about: Based on the supporting character who has popped up in Superman comics and the DC Rebirth reboot, but not on any particular story, this hour-long drama will follow (according to Variety) “Traci, a twenty-something forensic scientist and believer in the paranormal who discovers her own hidden extra-sensory abilities when she joins her estranged, skeptic father to investigate mysterious cases of the paranormal and unexplained phenomena.”
Status: Elizabeth Banks will serve as executive producer alongside writer and producer Daegan Fryklind (Bitten).
Queen of Shadows, from the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
Originally published: 2012, Bloomsbury
Optioned for: Television (Hulu)
What it’s about: In a land without magic, assassin Celaena Sardothien must fight 23 challengers in order to win her freedom… to become the champion of a tyrannical king.
Status: Kira Snyder (The 100, The Handmaid’s Tale) will write the pilot, with Anna Foerster (Outlander, Underworld: Blood Wars) set to direct.
Radioactive, from Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
Originally published: 2010, HarperCollins
Optioned for: Film (Amazon Studios/StudioCanal)
What it’s about: In this illustrated biography, artist and journalist Redniss tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, from their romance to their scientific discoveries and how they changed the world.
Status: Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) will direct a script by Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), with Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) playing Marie Curie.
Ranger’s Apprentice, from the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan
Originally published: 2004, Philomel (US & Canada) and Random House (Australia & New Zealand)
Optioned for: Film (Dick Cook Studios)
What it’s about: After spending the first fifteen years of his life wanting to be a Ranger, with their dark cloaks and shadowy ways, Will finally gets the chance when he is selected as a Ranger’s apprentice. But he quickly learns that not only are the Rangers the protectors of the kingdom, but there’s a battle brewing that will need every skill he can obtain.
Status: Paul Haggis and his daughter Alissa Sullivan Haggis are writing the screenplay, with Haggis directing and co-producing. Lou Xiaolou, chairman of China-based financier Film Carnival Co. Ltd., said, “Ranger’s Apprentice is only the beginning to our strategic plan of a more comprehensive collaboration.”
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
Originally published: 2012, Scholastic
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: “[F]our private school boys and a psychic’s daughter … quest for a sleeping king of Welsh legend in the mountains of Virginia, uncovering ancient magic, powerful dreams, and the devils in themselves.”
Status: Publishers Marketplace reported the news. Universal Cable Productions has set up the project at Syfy.
Red Sonja, from various comics by Robert E. Howard (name), Roy Thomas (concept), and Barry Windsor Smith (art), and others
Originally published: 1973, Marvel Comics
Optioned for: Film (Millennium Media)
What it’s about: Millennium Media’s Avi Lerner cited the popularity of Wonder Woman and the demand for female superhero movies as the appropriate timing to bring back the swashbuckling comic book character for her own movie.
Status: We don’t know much aside from the deal being in the works, though Deadline reports that the new adaptation will be very different from the 1985 film starring Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the meantime, check out our Nostalgia Rewatch of Red Sonja.
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Originally published: 2012, Tor Books
Optioned for: Television (FX)
What it’s about: In the 25th century, five new recruits on the Starship Intrepid start to notice the suspiciously high death toll happening to their crew… but their investigations uncover a meta conspiracy. A year after Redshirts won the Hugo Award, FX bought the rights for a limited series on television. At the 2014 LA Festival of Books, Scalzi discussed the adaptation: “The book is the book; the book will always be the book. The book is designed for this medium: to be a novel. When we transfer it to television, we have to take what works in the novel that will also work in the medium of television. You have to understand when you get on the Hollywood train that your book is a source.”
Status: Still very much in the early stages. See also: Lock In.
Revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton
Originally published: 2012, Image Comics
Optioned for: Film (Shatterglass Films)
What it’s about: One day, in a town in rural Wisconsin, the dead come back to life. Officer Dana Cypress must deal with outside interference from religious zealots and government quarantines while coping with the return of her recently deceased sister Em.
Status: Shatterglass Films’ Luke Boyce will direct a script co-written by Seeley and Sarah Fischer. Production is expected to start in early 2018; in the meantime, here’s the proof-of-concept teaser trailer.
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Originally published: 1970, Ballantine Books
Optioned for: Television (Amazon Studios/MGM)
What it’s about: Celebrating his 200th birthday in 2850 A.D., Louis Gridley Wu has become bored with human society. When offered the opportunity to join a voyage to Ringworld, he jumps at the chance to explore the artificial ring floating beyond the edges of known space.
Status: Syfy had previously developed the books as a four-hour miniseries, but now it will be a television series.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Originally published: 1972, Macmillan
Optioned for: Television (WGN America)
What it’s about: This Russian sci-fi novel centers on Red Schuhart (Matthew Goode), who enters “the Zone”—a dimension formerly inhabited by aliens—to collect mysterious artifacts to sell on the black market. But when something goes wrong in his world, Red must return to the Zone over and over again to find answers.
Status: Jack Paglen (Alien: Covenant) is writing the pilot. Interestingly, Roadside Picnic had previously inspired the 1979 film Stalker.
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
Originally published: 2011, Doubleday
Optioned for: Film (Dreamworks)
What it’s about: Basically World War Z with robots, Daniel H. Wilson’s novel provides an oral history of the Singularity and its aftermath.
Status: Steven Spielberg has been circling the project for years, but it’s currently been postponed. In late 2014, Wilson clarified that it’s “basically in the queue” behind Spielberg’s other projects. In early 2016, Drew Goddard (The Martian) put a positive spin on the delays: “There are so many times when projects don’t go at a certain release date but find a better home later” and “It was just a joy to see [Spielberg] in action and learn from him.” In a 2017 Reddit AMA, Wilson described the project as “Spielberg aaaaalmost made it into a movie, and now it’s still being developed and not dead as far as I know.”
Sand by Hugh Howey
Originally published: 2013, CreateSpace Publishing
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: In a post-ecologically ravaged world of savage winds and shifting dunes, a family of sand divers try to navigate their dangerous society in order to find their missing father.
Status: Universal Cable Productions has set up the project at Syfy. Gary Whitta (Rogue One) will adapt the novel for television, with Marc Forster (World War Z) directing the pilot.
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Originally published: 1989, Vertigo
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros/DC Films)
What it’s about: After escaping nearly a century of imprisonment, Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams and one of the Endless, goes about rebuilding his kingdom. Along the way, he visits Hell and Asgard, attempts to undo massive sins, and searches for his missing brother.
Status: The production team, which includes David S. Goyer (Batman v Superman) and Gaiman executive producing, is trying to condense the massive epic into a movie without going straight-up action movie. The production suffered a slight setback when Joseph Gordon-Levitt exited amid creative differences, but it looks as if Goyer and co. are continuing on. No release date set yet.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Originally published: 2016, Simon & Schuster
Optioned for: Film (Universal/Bluegrass Films)
What it’s about: Despite eradicating all disease, hunger, and war, humankind must still keep the population levels manageable, through trained killers known as scythes. Two teens, Citra and Rowan, are unwillingly apprenticed to a scythe, knowing that they must learn this “art” of killing or risk losing their lives instead.
Status: Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark will produce the adaptation for Bluegrass Films, with 10 Cloverfield Laneadapting Shusterman’s YA novel screenwriters Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken .
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Originally published: 2015, William Morrow
Optioned for: Film (Skydance)
What it’s about: When the Moon unexpectedly blows up, it turns Earth into a ticking time bomb—prompting humans to create a multinational ark in the hopes of finding a new home before theirs is uninhabitable. Five thousand years later, the seven distinct races created from the survivors return to explore the foreign planet Earth.
Status: Director-producer duo Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are reteaming with Apollo 13 screenwriter Bill Broyles to adapt Neal Stephenson’s doorstopper of a generation ship novel.
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
Originally published: 2015, Arthur A. Levine Books
Optioned for: Film and Television (Roaring Virgin Productions)
What it’s about: During what’s supposed to be a relaxing summer, artist Sierra Santiago discovers shadowshaping, a magic that infuses ancestral spirits into paintings, music, and stories. But someone is killing the shadowshapers one by one. Now Sierra must unravel her family’s past, take down the killer in the present, and save the future of shadowshaping for generations to come.
Status: Actress and producer Anika Noni Rose, who also optioned Older’s Bone Street Rumba series in 2015, has acquired film and TV rights.
The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty
Originally published: 2013, Orbit Books
Optioned for: Film (Netflix)
What it’s about: Travel writer Zoe takes a shady job in New York City’s publishing industry… writing a travel guide to the Big Apple for the undead.
Status: Netflix, which has begun releasing other feature films including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny and Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, is counting on The Shambling Guide to hit the sweet spot between YA and urban fantasy with this adaptation.
Shazam!, from various comics
Originally published: 1939, Fawcett Comics
Optioned for: Film (DC Films)
What it’s about: When kid Billy Batson speaks the word “SHAZAM,” he turns into the titular superhero.
Status: DC confirmed the movie at SDCC 2017. It’s unclear if Dwayne Johnson, who is set to play Shazam’s arch-nemesis Black Adam, will appear in this movie or only in his own standalone film.
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
Originally published: 2013, Mulholland Books
Optioned for: Film (MRC)
What it’s about: Beukes’ celebrated time travel centers on Midwest serial killer Harper Curtis, who discovers a wormhole in a house that allows him to jump through time and hunt down the “shining girls” whose auras compel him; and Kirby Mizrachi, the only victim to survive an attack and (as she grows up) his eventual nemesis.
Status: Previously considered for television, The Shining Girls looks to be a film now. Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game, Passengers) is in talks to direct the adaptation, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davison Killoran producing. Danny Boyle was previously attached to write the screenplay but left the project; perhaps Beukes, who is adapting her novel Zoo City as a screenplay, will take a stab at it.
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Originally published: 2010, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Optioned for: Film (Far East)
What it’s about: The novel, set after the melting of the polar ice caps, contemplates a world in which many major cities are underwater and follows a young boy named Nailer who tries to help a girl named Nita escape a blackmail plot.
Status: Oscar-winning writer/director Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) will direct the adaptation, the first in a planned trilogy.
Silver & Black, from Silver Sable and Black Cat comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1985/1979, Marvel Comics
Optioned for: Film (Sony Pictures)
What it’s about: The Spider-Man spinoff will follow mercenary Silver Sable and cat burglar (and Spidey love interest) Black Cat.
Status: Chris Yost (Thor: Ragnarok) is writing the current draft of the script; Lisa Joy (Westworld) had previously worked on it. Gina Prince-Bythewood (Cloak & Dagger) will helm the series, which is set to begin production in fall 2017.
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
Originally published: 1953, Geoffrey Bles
Optioned for: Film (TriStar Pictures)
What it’s about: The fourth Chronicles of Narnia installment sees Aslan calling upon Eustace Scrubb (from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and his classmate Jill Pole to recover King Caspian X’s missing son and only heir.
Status: TriStar, The Mark Gordon Company, Entertainment One, and the C.S. Lewis Company are rebooting the Narnia movie franchise, with David Magee (Finding Neverland, Life of Pi) has adapted the script; Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnson will helm the project.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Originally published: 1959, Delacorte
Optioned for: Television (Universal Cable Productions)
What it’s about: Vonnegut’s classic novel introduces readers to Malachi Constant—the richest, most depraved man in 22nd-century America, who is offered the chance to journey to distant worlds… but for a catch.
Status: Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) and Evan Katz (Small Crimes) are adapting the novel.
Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders
Originally published: 2011, Tor.com
Optioned for: Television (NBC)
What it’s about: Charlie Jane Anders’ Hugo-winning Tor.com novellette tracks the doomed relationship between a man who can see the future and a woman who can see many futures.
Status: In 2013, NBC nabbed the rights to adapt the novelette (with Krysten Ritter producing) into “a light procedural” that recasts the man and woman as bickering private investigators who know they’ll fall in love… if they can save him from getting killed in six months and three days. Unfortunately, no update since then.
Skin Trade by George R.R. Martin
Originally published: 1989, Orion Publishing
Optioned for: Television (Cinemax)
What it’s about: George R.R. Martin describes his 1988 novella as an “offbeat werewolf noir”: Private investigator Randi Wade gets involved in a string of gruesome serial killings (taking the skin of victims) that reminds her of her father’s death two decades prior. But when a close friend becomes a target, she’s pulled into a hairy underworld.
Status: Cinemax has ordered a pilot script, to be written by Kalinda Vazquez (Prison Break, Once Upon a Time).
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King
Originally published: 2017, Scribner
Optioned for: Television (TBD)
What it’s about: The inhabitants of a women’s prison in a small Appalachian town become shrouded in gauze when they go to sleep every night; if their slumber is disturbed, they turn feral and violent. All except Evie, who seems to be immune…
Status: Michael Sugar and Ashley Zalta (The OA, Maniac) will serve as executive producers.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Originally published: 1992, Bantam Books
Optioned for: Television (Amazon Studios/Paramount TV)
What it’s about: Neal Stephenson’s classic, neo-quasi-cyberpunk novel introduces us to pizza deliveryman/hacker Hiro Protagonist, his business partner YT, and their adventures in a future divided between life in a grim corprocracy and in the Metaverse, a virtual reality threatened by a terrifying virus.
Status: The one-hour drama series will be executive-produced by Joe Cornish (Ant-Man) and Frank Marshall (Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark).
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
Originally published: 2005, Tor Books
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: The Big Blackout cuts Earth off from the stars and sun through an alien barrier. With time passing faster outside of the barrier than on Earth, the youngest generation discovers that they may be the last: The sun will die in forty years unless someone figures out how to reverse this apocalypse or find new life on Mars.
Status: Syfy is supposedly planning a six-hour miniseries, but it wasn’t announced with the last crop of premieres, so it’s likely on the back burner.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Originally published: 2014, Knopf Doubleday
Optioned for: Film (Stone Village Productions)
What it’s about: The Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel envisions a post-apocalyptic future twenty years after a flu pandemic wiped out much of civilization. The story is told through Kirsten Raymonde and The Traveling Symphony, a roaming troupe of actors keeping the arts and humanity alive.
Status: Stone Village, who is also adapting Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan, recently acquired movie rights.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Originally published: 1961, Putnam Publishing Group
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: Heinlein’s classic novel tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who was raised by Martians, and who has to find way to adapt to human society after coming to live on Earth.
Status: Paramount TV and Universal Cable Productions (who have also collaborated on the series Shooter and Pendergast) are teaming up to adapt the novel.
Superior by Mark Millar (writer) and Leinil Yu (artist)
Originally published: 2010, Icon Comics (Marvel Comics)
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a 12-year-old boy has his greatest wish granted: to become Superior, his favorite superhero. But after he discovers that the alien monkey who granted his wish is a demon, he must sell his soul to keep his powers.
Status: Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Kingsman: The Secret Service) is attached to adapt the project. The most recent update is from January 2016.
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Originally published: 1984, Viking
Optioned for: Film (Amblin Entertainment)
What it’s about: Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother’s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths.
Status: Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars, The New Mutants) has been tapped to adapt the novel for the big screen.
Temeraire by Naomi Novik
Originally published: 2006, Del Rey
Optioned for: Film or Television (TBD)
What it’s about: Alternate-history Napoleonic Wars in which protagonist Captain Will Laurence is part of the Aerial Corps, battling the French forces on the backs of fearsome dragons like his own, Temeraire.
Status: Peter Jackson optioned the rights in 2006 but has not made any moves to develop the project. According to quotes he gave in 2009, it would seem that he had originally intended to make a film trilogy, then realized that the material would be better suited to a miniseries. Unfortunately, that was in a pre-Game of Thrones world where epic fantasies didn’t exist so comfortably on the small screen. There’s been no word since, and Jackson is busy with a number of other projects; but more than one outlet has suggested he turn his attention back to Temeraire.
The Themis Files, from Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
Originally published: 2016, Del Rey
Optioned for: Film (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
What it’s about: After falling through the ground and into the palm of a giant metal hand as a child, Rose Franklin, now grown-up and a physicist, leads a team to discover the answers behind the hand… and where the rest of the body is.
Status: Josh Bratman (Fright Night) and Matt Tolmach (The Amazing Spider-Man) will co-produce the film adaptation.
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Originally published: 2013, Disney Hyperion
Optioned for: Television (Freeform)
What it’s about: When the massive luxury spaceliner Icarus crashes into the closest planet, the only survivors are Lilac LaRoux (daughter of the richest man in the universe) and Tarver Merendsen (a war hero with humble origins). As these literally star-crossed lovers help each other survive, they begin to wonder if they even want to get off their new planet.
Status: Actor and producer Eric Balfour is teaming up with his producing partner Stephanie Varella and Fargo producer Warren Littlefield to adapt the first book in the Starbound trilogy (which includes This Shattered World and Their Fractured Light, both published). Continuum creator/showrunner Simon Barry will write the teleplay.
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
Originally published: 2016, HarperCollins
Optioned for: Film (Sony Pictures/Safehouse Pictures)
What it’s about: In the dystopian V-City, violent acts have bred actual monsters. One monster, August, can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. But as he tries to tamp down his murderous impulses, he finds himself teamed up with Kate, the daughter of an extortionist, after an assassination attempt.
Status: Sony has optioned the film rights.
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu
Originally published: 2015, Tor Books
Optioned for: Film (Paramount Pictures)
What it’s about: Convicted criminal James Griffin-Mars is a chronman: He jumps back and forth in time to help delay humanity’s demise in the future. But when he brings a scientist from the past into the future with him, they both become fugitives.
Status: Michael Bay will direct the film adaptation, with Wesley Chu executive-producing.
Trees by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jason Howard (artist)
Originally published: 2014, Image Comics
Optioned for: Television (Hardy Son & Baker/NBCUniversal)
What it’s about: Aliens land on Earth, but they don’t make contact—they just stand on the surface, exerting silent pressure, refusing to acknowledge humans as intelligent life.
Status: Tom Hardy’s production company is currently developing the TV adaptation.
The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
Originally published: 2012, Top Shelf Productions/IDW Publishing
Optioned for: Film (Anonymous Content)
What it’s about: Jack is an offshore oil rig worker who undertakes the dangerous work of underwater welding to repair the rig. Deep on one dive, Jack encounters a supernatural creature that allows him to interact with the ghost of his father.
Status: Ryan Gosling, Ken Kao, and Anonymous Content will serve as producers on the adaptation.
Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Originally published: 2017, Hyperion
Optioned for: Film (Cross Creek Pictures)
What it’s about: Unearthed is the first book of a forthcoming duology by the writing duo behind These Broken Stars and is described as “Lara Croft meets Indiana Jones, set in deep space.”
Status: Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman is planning to direct the adaptation.
Uprising, from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Originally published: 1966, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: Heinlein’s Hugo-winning novel depicts the revolt of a former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority controlling it from Earth (no doubt where the movie’s title comes from)—a rebellion that counts among its numbers a technician, an academic, and an artificial intelligence committed to the cause.
Status: Fox picked up the movie rights in 2015, with X-Men‘s Bryan Singer attached to direct. This will be the third attempted adaptation of the novel; DreamWorks and Phoenix Pictures both had projects in the works at some point, but each time the rights reverted back to Heinlein’s estate.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Originally published: 2015, Del Rey
Optioned for: Film (Warner Bros)
What it’s about: Plain, clumsy, loyal Agnieszka is handed over to the Dragon, a fearsome wizard who takes one girl from her village every ten years. She never expected to be taken—expected he would take her beautiful, brave best friend Kasia—but as Agnieszka begins exploring the magic she never knew she had, it soon becomes clear why the Dragon felt compelled to take her instead.
Status: Naomi Novik is working with Ellen DeGeneres to adapt the novel.
The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
Originally published: 1976, Knopf
Optioned for: Television (Paramount Television/Anonymous Content)
What it’s about: Beginning with Interview with the Vampire, Rice’s series follows vampire Lestat de Lioncourt through his long eternal life.
Status: Paramount Television and Anonymous Content have optioned the rights to all 11 novels in the series; the author describes the adaptation as “an open ended series.” Rice will serve as executive producer alongside her son Christopher Rice, who will be main writer and showrunner… and rumor has it Bryan Fuller is helping to develop the series, though his ultimate role is unknown. Alex Kurtzman, who was attached to a previous potential film adaptation at Universal Pictures, will also serve as a producer. Rice has invited fans to submit their suggestions for up-and-comers to play Lestat.
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Originally published: 1898, William Heinemann
Optioned for: Television (The Firm/MTV) (BBC)
What it’s about: An unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his brother in London watch as Martians invade southern London.
Status: There are actually two adaptations in the works! Teen Wolf creators Jeff Davis and Andrew Cochran will adapt Wells’ iconic novel for MTV, but there’s been no update on this project since late 2016. Since the novel is in the public domain, the BBC is able to develop its own take; Peter Hartness, who adapted Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell for the BBC in 2015, will write a script set, interestingly, in Victorian times.
The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett
Originally published: 2009, Del Rey
Optioned for: Film (New Harlem Partnership)
What it’s about: Three young survivors of vicious demon (or coreling) attacks step beyond the safe bounds of warded magic to discover secrets about the past and figure out how to level the playing field between humans and corelings.
Status: After Paul W.S. Anderson’s hold on the rights expired, Spike Seldin (The A-Team) and Hans Futterman picked them up. Brett will adapt his novel into a screenplay. New Harlem is currently meeting with potential financiers and distributors.
The Warriors by Sol Yurick
Originally published: 1965, E.P. Dutton
Optioned for: Television (Paramount TV/Hulu)
What it’s about: When they’re framed for the murder of the leader of New York City’s street gangs, the eponymous Warriors must race back to their home turf of Coney Island before the rival gangs tear them apart.
Status: The Russo brothers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War) will direct a script from Frank Baldwin as a one-hour drama.
The Watch, from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
Originally published: 1983, Colin Smythe
Optioned for: Television (Narrativia)
What it’s about: Described as a “Pratchett-style CSI,” this procedural would pull from stories about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch from the Discworld novels.
Status: In the Discworld Monthly Newsletter released in November 2015, Pratchett’s assistant Rob Wilkins wrote, “There will be no news from Narrativia regarding the Discworld Watch series until the first day on set.” That would imply that the project is still in some stage of development, without giving any sort of concrete timeline.
Watchdog by Will McIntosh
Originally published: Delacorte, 2017
Optioned for: Television (Sonar Entertainment)
What it’s about: Twins Vick and Tara, who is autistic (communicative but faced with worsening systems), and their loyal robot watchdog Daisy fend for themselves on the streets of futuristic, economically devastated Chicago.
Status: Art Brown and Douglas Sloan (Dragons: Race to the Edge) will serve as showrunners on the animated series.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Originally published: 2010, Tor Books
Optioned for: Film (DMG Entertainment)
What it’s about: The first installment in The Stormlight Archive follows Kaladin, a medical apprentice turned slave; Brightlord Dalinar Kholin, commanding one of ten armies in a war that makes no sense; Shallan, an untried woman seeking to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic; and the fallen Knights Radiant and the Shardblades they left behind.
Status: In 2016, DMG Entertainment made a licensing and film deal for the rights to Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. DMG likened the acquisition to obtaining the rights for a comic-book universe, as the Cosmere contains The Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, White Sand, and more. They are currently fast-tracking an adaptation of Way of Kings; screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the writing team behind several Saw films, will adapt the screenplay. DMG is also adapting the Mistborn series for film but has not determined a screenwriter yet. Sanderson will serve as an executive producer. In his State of the Sanderson 2017, he said that part of selling the series to Hollywood will include “a Stormlight VR experience.” In the meantime, check out our Way of Kings dream-cast.
We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory
Originally published: 2014, Tachyon Publications
Optioned for: Television (Syfy)
What it’s about: Psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer brings together the final girls (and final boys) of various horror-movie scenarios for a support group. But in trying to help these survivors, Dr. Sayer unwittingly unlocks the supernatural evils buried within their consciousnesses.
Status: After Wes Craven’s death in 2015, Syfy announced that it still intends to move forward with a number of projects, including We Are All Completely Fine.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Originally published: 1962, Viking Press
Optioned for: Film (Further Films/Great Point Media)
What it’s about: One of Jackson’s best-known stories, We Have Always Lived in the Castle centers on a perverse, possibly murderous family whose isolation from the outside world is upended by a distant cousin (Sebastian Stan) looking to uncover dark secrets.
Status: Michael Douglas is producing the thriller adaptation, from a screenplay written by Stacie Passon (Concussion) and Mark Kruger (Damien, Teen Wolf).
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Originally published: 2003, Doubleday
Optioned for: Film (Narrativia & The Jim Henson Company)
What it’s about: The first of several Tiffany Aching stories, about the young witch-to-be’s discovery of her powers. Armed with her frying pan and common sense, and aided by the Wee Free Men, Tiffany faces off against headless horsemen, dreams come true (in the worst way), and the Elf Queen.
Status: Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna Pratchett announced back in 2013 that she was adapting the novel as a feature-length film, but there were no updates until the project was confirmed at Pratchett’s memorial. The Jim Henson Company will co-produce with Narrativia.
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
Originally published: 1990, Tor Books
Optioned for: Television (Sony Pictures Television)
What it’s about: Everything you need to know is in the Wheel of Time Reread Redux.
Status: In early 2015, a baffling Wheel of Time “pilot” appeared online. Harriet McDougal, the late author’s wife and CEO of the Bandersnatch Group (to whom the movie and TV rights reverted back to in February 2015), released a statement clarifying that the pilot was neither seen nor approved by the Jordan estate. In April 2016, McDougal announced that legal issues had been resolved and “WoT will become a cutting edge TV Series.” A year later came the announcement that Sony Pictures Television would adapt the epic fantasy series alongside Red Eagle Entertainment and Radar Pictures, with Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hemlock Grove, Chuck) serving as showrunner.
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Originally published: 2010, DAW
Optioned for: Television (HBO)
What it’s about: Onyesonwu, whose name means “who fears death,” is Ewu—conceived by rape, expected to live a life of violence as a half-breed rejected by her community. Instead, Onye discovers that she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic.
Status: George R.R. Martin will serve as an executive producer on the television adaptation; Okorafor will also be very involved in the project. HBO officially closed on the deal in September 2017.
Wild Cards, from the Wild Cards series edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass
Originally published: 1987, Bantam Books
Optioned for: Television (Universal Cable Productions)
What it’s about: Martin’s shared-universe anthology tracks the aftermath of an alien virus released after World War II, which killed 90% of those who contracted it but imbued a small number of survivors with extraordinary powers. Some have used them for good, others for evil. The 22 published installments have featured stories by dozens of authors, including Roger Zelazny, Pat Cadigan, Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck, Cherie Priest, Paul Cornell, and more.
Status: In late 2016, Martin announced that Universal Cable Productions is adapting the mosaic novels for television, with co-editor Melinda Snodgrass (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as showrunner alongside producer Gregory Noveck from Syfy Films. Martin also invites readers to share their dream casts! In mid-2017, Martin shared an update that he is in talks with UCP about three potential Wild Cards series.
Wildwood by Colin Meloy (writer) and Carson Ellis (illustrator)
Originally published: 2011, Balzer + Bray
Optioned for: Film (LAIKA)
What it’s about: Set in an alternate version of Portland, OR, the middle-grade epic fantasy follows young Prue McKeel, who must enter the Impassable Wilderness after her little brother is abducted by a murder of crows.
Status: LAIKA picked up the rights shortly after publication, but the film, a stop-motion adaptation, has not been released yet.
Witchblade by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1995, Top Cow Productions/Image Comics
Optioned for: Television (Sony Pictures Television/NBC Universal)
What it’s about: NBC’s adaptation will be a police procedural following homicide detective Sara Pezzini, on the hunt for a serial killer only to discover that the bracelet she has worn her entire life is actually the mystical Witchblade amulet, giving her supernatural insight into cases.
Status: Fresh off The Vampire Diaries, Caroline Dries and Brian Young (who wrote the pilot) will executive produce. The last time Witchblade was adapted was as a short-lived TV series in 2001 starring Yancy Butler.
The Witcher, from The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski
Originally published: 2008, Orbit Books
Adapted for: Television (Netflix)
What it’s about: The Witcher (a series of novels and stories, later highly acclaimed video games) tells the story of Geralt Of Rivia, who is a member of a secretive group of professional monster-hunters. He finds himself caring for a young girl named Ciri, a magician who is forced to escape her home. The games, particularly The Witcher 3, invite players into a sandbox offering hundreds of sidequests as well as developing Geralt into a complex and endlessly-memable character.
Status: Sapkowski is set to be a creative consultant on the TV series, along with executive producers Jason Brown and Sean Daniel. Tomasz Bagiński, an animator who previously worked on the games with studio Platige Image, and who was set to direct a film based on The Witcher saga, is now onboard as a producer, and will also direct “at least one episode of each season.”
Wool by Hugh Howey
Originally published: 2013, Simon & Schuster
Optioned for: Film (20th Century Fox)
What it’s about: In a post-apocalyptic future characterized by a ruined and toxic landscape, surviving humans live in a silo deep underground. When Sheriff Holston breaks the community’s most important rule, asking to go outside, he is replaced by mechanic Juliette. But as Juliette is entrusted with fixing her silo, she begins to discover just how broken their society is.
Status: Guardians of the Galaxy screenwriter Nicole Perlman was hired to revise previous drafts of the screenplay. However, there’s been no update on the project since mid-2015.
World War Z 2, from World War Z by Max Brooks
Originally published: 2006, Crown/Archetype
Optioned for: Film (Paramount Pictures)
What it’s about: In Brooks’ oral history of the zombie apocalypse, the unnamed narrator interviews key figures who were present for the plague that reshaped the world.
Status: The first film, an action thriller starring Brad Pitt and released in 2013, was so rewritten as to not resemble the source material aside from title. Presumably, the sequel will pick up from the ending of the film. David Fincher (Gone Girl, The Social Network) will direct.
The Wrong Grave, from “The Wrong Grave” by Kelly Link
Originally published: 2009, Text Publishing
Optioned for: Film (Independent)
What it’s about: Sixteen-year-old Miles Sperry digs up the grave of his girlfriend Bethany Baldwin, who hasn’t been dead for much longer than a year, to recover the bad love poetry he buried with her.
Status: You can follow along with the production on Facebook and the official website.
Xanth series by Piers Anthony
Originally published: 1977, Ballantine Books & Del Rey
Optioned for: Television and Film (SP Entertainment Group)
What it’s about: Anthony’s long-running fantasy saga takes place in the eponymous land of Xanth, whose inhabitants develop their “talent,” or magic, to become powerful magicians while encountering mythological creatures and maybe popping back and forth into Mundania.
Status: Producer Steven Paul’s (Ghost in the Shell, Ghost Rider) SP Entertainment Group is launching development of the Xanth novels into both a feature film and a television series.
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn (writer) and Pia Guerra (artist)
Originally published: 2002, Vertigo
Optioned for: Television (FX)
What it’s about: Brian K. Vaughan’s landmark comic book series—and the series that got me hooked on the medium—examines the fallout of a worldwide plague that wipes out everyone with an XY chromosome, except for aspiring escape artist Yorick and his monkey Ampersand. While the female survivors struggle to rebuild society, several groups target the last man and chase him across the Earth.
Status: The producer who wooed Vaughan into adapting his beloved series (which was wrapped up in movie deals for ages) for television? Nina Jacobson, who has a little hit on her hands with the Hunger Games franchise. Fans will be heartened to hear that Vaughan is very involved in the project; in mid-2017, he described the pilot draft as “phenomenal.” Last we heard from FX, the script would be ready by early-to-mid 2017; it will be an ongoing series rather than a limited one.
Zero K by Don DeLillo
Originally published: 2016, Scribner
Optioned for: Television (FX)
What it’s about: Billionaire Ross Lockhart sends his wife Artis Martineau, diagnosed with a terminal illness, to a secret compound where bodies are preserved and death is staved off. With a personal investment now joining his financial stake, Ross hopes that Zero K can help save Artis’ life… but the story is told from the POV of Jeffrey Lockhart, their son.
Status: The rights were optioned before the book was even published.
Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke
Originally published: 2011, First Second Books
Optioned for: Film (Fox Animation)
What it’s about: When her best friend is abducted by an alien doomsday cult, Zita leaps to the rescue—encountering ancient prophecies, doomed planets, and mysterious con men along the way.
Status: Screenwriting duo Morgan Jurgenson and Alex Ankeles (Hyperdrive, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) will adapt Eisner Award winner Ben Hatke’s Miyazaki-esque graphic novel trilogy.
COMING SOON
Annihilation (Film, Paramount Pictures)
Adapted from: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Originally published: 2014, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
What it’s about: The first installment of VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy follows a biologist (Natalie Portman), a psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a surveyer, and an anthropologist (Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez, whose roles have not yet been clarified) as they venture into the untamed Area X. They are the twelfth expedition, after their forebears’ explorations ended in violence, madness, and death. The biologist, our narrator, is especially concerned with discovering the secrets of Area X, as they relate to her missing husband (Oscar Isaac). Ex Machina‘s Alex Garland is writing and directing; he talks about the process here.
Status: Comes to theaters February 23. Watch the latest trailer.
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Film, Marvel Studios)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: TBD
What it’s about: No official synopsis yet, but presumably the film will focus on Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly).
Status: Comes to theaters July 6.
Aquaman (Film, Warner Bros/DC Films)
Adapted from: various DC Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1941, DC Comics
What it’s about: No official synopsis yet.
Status: Comes to theaters December 21.
Avengers: Infinity War (Film, Marvel Studios)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1963, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: “Four years after the events of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the Avengers, torn apart after the events of Captain America: Civil War, join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy to battle Thanos, who is trying to amass the Infinity Stones for a gauntlet that will give him dominion over space, time, and all reality.“
Status: Comes to theaters May 4. Watch the first trailer, then join us in asking all the questions about Thanos, Infinity Stones, and who’s doomed!
Captain Marvel (Film, Marvel Studios)
Adapted from: Captain Marvel by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1968, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Captain Marvel tracks Air Force pilot Carol Danvers’ (Brie Larson) transformation into the titular superhero after an accident fuses her human DNA with that of an alien and grants her superpowers. The movie will be set in the ’90s and feature Skrulls as the villains.
Status: Comes to theaters March 8, 2019. Directing duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) will helm the film, based on a screenplay from Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider, Gotham City Sirens).
Castle Rock (Television, Hulu/Bad Robot)
Adapted from: the universe of Stephen King
Originally published: various
What it’s about: Named for the fictional Maine town appearing (or mentioned) in many of King’s novels and short stories, Castle Rock is a horror anthology series that will both draw from King’s existing body of work while including new stories.
Status: J.J. Abrams will produce; Manhattan creator Sam Shaw will write with Dustin Thomason, who also served as a writer and executive producer on Manhattan. The cast includes Melanie Lynskey, Sissy Spacek, Andre Holland, and Jane Levy. Premieres sometime in 2018; watch the latest teaser.
Chaos Walking (Film, Lionsgate)
Adapted from: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Originally published: 2008, Walker Books
What it’s about: In a dystopian future where all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts, the sole boy in a town of men flees with his dog after discovering an awful secret, and comes upon a strangely silent girl.
Status: Comes to theaters March 1, 2019. Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) will direct; both Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Jamie Linden (Money Monster) have taken stabs at adapting the book. The cast includes Tom Holland (Todd Hewitt), Daisy Ridley (Viola Eade), Nick Jonas (Davy Prentiss Jr.), and Mads Mikkelsen (Mayor Prentiss).
The City & the City (Television, BBC Two)
Adapted from: The City & the City by China Miéville
Originally published: 2009, Del Rey
What it’s about: To solve a murder, Inspector Tyador Borlú must move between the overlapping twin cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma.
Status: Tony Grisoni (The Young Pope, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams has adapted the novel into a four-part series) starring David Morrissey (The Walking Dead) and Mandeep Dhillon (Wolfblood). No premiere date yet, but it’s expected to air in early 2018.
Cloak and Dagger (Television, Freeform/Marvel Television)
Adapted from: Cloak and Dagger by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1983, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Marvel is expanding its television universe with a show aimed at teenagers on Freeform (formerly known as ABC Family). Tandy “Dagger” Bowen and Tyrone “Cloak” Johnson are an unusual duo, in that their superpowers are incredibly complementary: She can create daggers of light, while he can engulf others in total darkness. No word yet on which of Cloak and Dagger’s many Marvel Comics plotlines the show will actually be based.
Status: Writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Beyond the Lights, An Untamed State) will direct the pilot, and the leads have been cast: former Disney Channel star Olivia Holt will play Tandy, while The Night Of’s Aubrey Joseph will portray Tyrone. Premieres June 6. Watch the first trailer!
The Dark Tower (Film & Television, Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Adapted from: The Dark Tower by Stephen King
Originally published: 2003, Plume Books
What it’s about: Stephen King has described the series as his magnum opus: Combining themes from sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and Western, it follows a gunslinger (Idris Elba), the Man in Black he’s following (Matthew McConaughey), and his quest to find a tower that is both physical and metaphorical.
Status: The Dark Tower movie (read our review) came to theaters August 4, 2017. The TV show is expected to premiere in 2018: Based on Wizard and Glass, it’s a 10-to-13-episode prequel series following a young Roland.
The Darkest Minds (Film, 20th Century Fox)
Adapted from: The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
Originally published: 2012, Disney Hyperion
What it’s about: After a pandemic kills most of America’s children and teenagers, the survivors develop superpowers and are placed inside internment camps. Sixteen-year-old telekinetic Ruby Dee (The Hunger Games‘ Amandla Stenberg) escapes the camp, joining up with a group of teens on the run from the government. This Is Us’ Mandy Moore will play a doctor who’s part of a crusade to stop the persecution of the children.
Status: Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda 3) will direct the adaptation, with Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) producing. Comes to theaters September 14.
The Untitled Deadpool Sequel (Film, 20th Century Fox)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists; created by Rob Liefeld (artist) and Fabian Nicieza (writer)
Originally published: 1991, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Even the synopsis is trolling, but it’s too good not to include here: “After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry’s hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor—finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.”
Status: Comes to theaters May 18.
Untitled Marvel’s Deadpool Series (Television, Marvel Television/FX Productions)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists; created by Rob Liefeld (artist) and Fabian Nicieza (writer)
Originally published: 1991, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Donald Glover and Stephen Glover will serve as showrunners, executive producers, and writers on the animated series following the Merc with the Mouth.
Status: The series is tentatively scheduled to debut on FX in early 2018. As of mid-2017, Donald Glover was working on scripts with a writing staff while shooting the untitled Han Solo movie in London.
A Discovery of Witches (Television, Sky One)
Adapted from: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Originally published: 2011, Penguin Books
What it’s about: Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), an alchemical history professor at the University of Oxford, gets caught up with an ancient manuscript that calls to the magic in her blood, and a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), who may also have designs on her blood. Doctor Who’s Alex Kingston will play Diana’s aunt Sarah Bishop, with Sherlock’s Lindsay Duncan as Matthew’s vampiric mother Ysabeau de Clermont.
Status: While there was a film adaptation in development back in 2011, now it looks as if the All Souls trilogy will appear on TV. Jane Tranter and Bad Wolf will produce the series; Harkness is one of the executive producers and is writing some of the episodes. The series will air in fall 2018. Watch the first trailer!
Fahrenheit 451 (Film, HBO Films)
Adapted from: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Originally published: 1953, Ballantine Books
What it’s about: Bradbury’s chilling class envisions a future in which fireman Guy Montag begins to question his job to burn books after meeting a young woman who doesn’t share the empty-headed complacency of his peers. While the last film adaptation was in 1966, Fahrenheit 451 has been adapted as a stage play (1979), a radio play (1982), an interactive computer game (1984), and a graphic novel (2009).
Status: Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes) will write, direct, and executive produce the new TV movie adaptation starring Michael B. Jordan as Montag and Michael Shannon as Beatty. It’s expected to premiere in spring 2018.
Untitled Gambit Movie, from various comics
Originally published: 1990, Marvel Comics
Optioned for: Film (Fox)
What it’s about: It’s currently unclear whether or not this standalone film will be an origin story.
Status: At SDCC 2017, after the project had languished for a couple of years, star Channing Tatum said that they were “giving it a bit of a rethink.” Now the projected release is June 7, 2019.
Good Omens (Television, BBC/Amazon Studios)
Adapted from: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Originally published: 1990, Gollancz/Workman
What it’s about: Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett co-wrote this comedy about the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley trying to avoid the End Times, brought about by Satan’s son.
Status: At a 2016 memorial for Pratchett, Gaiman revealed that the late author wrote him a letter before his death imploring Gaiman to adapt their book on his own. (Gaiman: “At that point, I think I said, ‘You bastard, yes.’”) The six-part miniseries, which will star David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale, is set to premiere in 2019 on Amazon Prime Video before being aired via BBC Two.
Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen (Film, Millennium)
Adapted from: Hellboy by Mike Mignola
Originally published: 1993, Dark Horse Comics
What it’s about: A demon who shaved off his horns, Hellboy works for the BPRD (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense), fighting dark forces like the Nazi occultists who first summoned him from Hell as an infant.
Status: Instead of Guillermo del Toro’s long-gestating (and now dead) Hellboy 3, this will be an R-rated reboot directed by Neil Marshall (The Descent) and starring David Harbour (Stranger Things). According to Harbour, it won’t be an origin story. Coming to theaters January 11, 2019.
Hello, Rain (Film, Fiery Film)
Adapted from: “Hello, Moto” by Nnedi Okorafor
Originally published: 2011, Tor.com
What it’s about: Scientist and witch Rain (Keira Hewatch) hopes that her inventions, wigs that allow their wearers to wield influence and power, will help battle corruption. Instead, she watches her friends Philo (Tunde Aladese) and Coco (Ogee Nelson) themselves become corrupted, turning them against Rain as she attempts to make up for what she’s done.
Status: Nigerian film/TV company/studio Fiery Film optioned the rights in early 2017. The short film is currently in post-production, with the plan to begin festival and screening tours in early 2018.
The House with a Clock in Its Walls (Film, Mythology Entertainment)
Adapted from: The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
Originally published: 1973, Dial
What it’s about: Bellairs’ eerie middle-grade books follow Lewis Barnavelt and his mysterious warlock uncle Jonathan Barnavelt as they get tangled up with black magic, ancient artificats, and the apocalypse.
Status: Comes to theaters September 21. In the meantime, read Grady Hendrix’s nostalgic thoughts on Bellairs!
Krypton (Television, Syfy)
Adapted from: various Superman comics by various writers and artists
Originally published: 1938, DC Comics
What it’s about: “Set two generations before the destruction of the legendary Man of Steel’s home planet, Krypton follows Superman’s grandfather (Cameron Cuffe, The Halcyon)—whose House of El was ostracized and shamed—as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.”
Status: Premieres March 21.
Mortal Engines (Film, Universal Pictures/MRC)
Adapted from: Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
Originally published: 2001, Scholastic
What it’s about: Mortal Engines is the first book in a quartet set in a distant future called the Traction Era. A catastrophic Sixty-Minute War laid waste to Earth, and obliterated national boundaries. People rebuilt society by focusing on “Traction Cities”—that is, mobile city-states that are mounted on tracks and can attack each other for resources as part of a system known as “Municipal Darwinism.”
Status: Peter Jackson adapted the screenplay (with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) and produced the film, with his protégé Christian Rivers directing. The cast includes Robert Sheehan, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang, Jihae, and Leila George. Comes to theaters December 14. Watch the teaser trailer.
The New Mutants (Film, 20th Century Fox)
Adapted from: New Mutants by Chris Claremont (writer) and Bob McLeod (artist)
Originally published: 1982, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: We don’t know much, but judging from the title, it’s likely about a team of young mutants fighting to protect themselves in a world that hates them.
Status: Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) will direct from a script by him and writing partner Knate Lee. Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones, Doctor Who) will play Wolfsbane, while Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Split) will play Magik; Alice Braga has replaced Rosario Dawson in the role of Dr. Cecilia Reyes. Also, it’s going to be a “full-fledged horror movie”! Comes to theaters February 22, 2019. Watch the first trailer!
New Warriors (Television, Marvel Television/TBD)
Adapted from: New Warriors by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1989, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: “New Warriors centers around six young people struggling to make a difference and learn how to harness their powers … Not quite super, not yet heroes, Marvel’s New Warriors is about that time in your life when you first enter adulthood and feel like you can do everything and nothing at once—except in this world, bad guys can be as terrifying as bad dates.”
Status: Kevin Biegel (Cougar Town, Enlisted) will serve as showrunner and lead writer. Milana Vayntrub will play Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! The series is expected to premiere sometime in 2018, though it’s looking for a network after Freeform passed on it.
Ready Player One (Film, Amblin Entertainment)
Adapted from: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Originally published: 2011, Crown/Archetype
What it’s about: In 2044, most people have abandoned their grim, poverty-stricken reality for the OASIS, a completely immersive MMORPG (which will be depicted through motion-capture in the film). When OASIS creator James Halliday passes away, he leaves behind a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-esque Easter egg hunt for his fortune. Leading the search are aspiring gunter (egg hunter) Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), his best friend Aech, and famous gunter Art3mis.
Status: Comes to theaters March 29. Watch the final trailer.
Redliners (Television, NBC)
Adapted from: short fiction by Charlaine Harris
Originally published: various
What it’s about: The series, about former spies in suburbia, is described as “a high-octane project that mixes humor, romance and espionage centering on a pair of former operatives who get reactivated and drawn into a larger conspiracy while attempting to maintain their undercover lives.”
Status: Emerald City executive producer Shaun Cassidy and comics creator Kelly Sue DeConnick (also involved with Emerald City) are setting up NBC’s second Harris project, after Midnight, Texas. It’s unclear if the series will premiere in 2018.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Film, Sony Pictures)
Adapted from: Ultimate Fallout by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli
Originally published: 2011, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: “Enter a universe where more than one wears the mask.” But most importantly—Miles Morales!
Status: Set to be released December 21. Watch the first trailer.
Suicide Squad 2 (Film, DC Films/Warner Bros)
Adapted from: various DC Comics by various writers and artists
Originally published: 1959, DC Comics
What it’s about: No word yet on plot.
Status: Warner Bros is reportedly fast-tracking the sequel, set to begin filming in 2018 for a 2019 release.
The Terror (Television, AMC)
Adapted from: The Terror by Dan Simmons
Originally published: 2007, Little, Brown and Company
What it’s about: In 1847, a Royal Naval expedition crew searching for the Northwest Passage is attacked by a mysterious predator that stalks their ships and crew.
Status: Ridley Scott’s anthology series, which premieres March 26, stars Jared Harris (Mad Men) and Tobias Menzies (Outlander).
The Three-Body Problem: I (Film, Youzu Pictures)
Adapted from: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu)
Originally published: 2006, Chongqing Press
What it’s about: During China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military program sends signals into space to initiate first contact with aliens. Years later, a physicist uses the virtual reality video game Three-Body to discover a secret organization and uncover what the aliens might actually want from Earth.
Status: The Three-Body Trilogy is being adapted into six movies, directed by Panpan Zhang. Liu told The Atlantic in late 2017 that although the film shoot had wrapped in 2015, the project was still in post-production. Release date is unclear. In the meantime, check out the stunning stage adaptation of the novel.
Venom (Film, Columbia Pictures)
Adapted from: Venom: Lethal Protector by David Michelinie (writer) and Mark Bagley (artist)
Originally published: 1993, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) told fans at Brazil Comic-Con that the story is primarily based on the Lethal Protector and The Planet of the Symbiotes books. The former has Eddie Brock (to be played in the movie by Tom Hardy) moving to San Francisco and becoming an antihero, while the latter is about Brock/Venom fighting off symbiotes. This movie is not a spinoff of Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Status: Comes to theaters October 5. Watch the first teaser.
Wicked (Film, Universal Pictures)
Adapted from: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
Originally published: 1996, HarperCollins
What it’s about: Maguire’s political and ethical commentary is a revisionist take on the Wicked Witch’s life—reimagining her as Elphaba, the misunderstood, green-skinned girl who befriends another witch-to-be, Galinda, at Shiz University and stumbles upon corruption in the Emerald City.
Status: Technically, the movie is adapting the beloved Broadway musical Wicked, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holtzmann. But since their show was inspired by Maguire’s book, I’m counting it. The two are working on a screenplay, with Schwartz teasing at least two new songs. The movie will be released December 20, 2019.
Wonder Woman 2 (Film, DC Films/Warner Bros)
Adapted from: various DC Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1941, DC Comics
What it’s about: Rumor has it the sequel will be set during the Cold War.
Status: Comes to theaters December 13. Director Patty Jenkins will return!
A Wrinkle in Time (Film, Walt Disney Company)
Adapted from: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Originally published: 1963, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
What it’s about: Director Ava DuVernay (Selma) and screenwriter Jennifer Lee (Frozen) will make up for the lackluster 2003 TV movie with their new take on the classic story of Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace traveling through space and time via tesseract to save their missing father.
Status: Comes to theaters March 9. Watch the latest trailer!
X-Men: Dark Phoenix (Film, 20th Century Fox)
Adapted from: Uncanny X-Men (“The Dark Phoenix Saga”) by Chris Claremont (writer) and John Byrne (writer/artist)
Originally published: 1980, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: No official synopsis yet, but it will presumably pick up after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse. Jessica Chastain will play the villainous Lilandra.
Status: Comes to theaters November 2. Check out first-look photos from EW.
CURRENTLY ON THE AIR / RETURNING NEXT SEASON
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Television, Marvel Studios/ABC)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1965, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. must deal with unusual cases and threats from Hydra and Inhumans.
Status: Season 5 premiered fall 2017; the series’ fate is unclear.
Altered Carbon (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Originally published: 2002, Gollancz
What it’s about: In a post-cyberpunk future, human consciousness can be stored, downloaded, and reuploaded into “sleeves,” or new bodies. Soldier Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman) is downloaded into the body of a disgraced cop to investigate the death of a Meth, or aristocrat, who’s convinced that he was murdered. The rest of the cast includes James Purefoy (as Laurens Bancroft, a Meth), Dichen Lachman (as Takashi’s sister Reileen Kawahara), Will Yun Lee (as Takeshi’s former body), and more.
Status: Unclear if the series will be renewed for season 2.
American Gods (Television, Starz)
Adapted from: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Originally published: 2001, William Morrow
What it’s about: Showrunners Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) and Michael Green (Heroes) made Gaiman’s novel, about the battles between old gods and new, into a sort of anthology series.
Status: Renewed for a second season, although Jason Alexander has replaced Fuller and Green as showunner. Read our coverage of season 1.
Black Lightning (Television, The CW)
Adapted from: various DC Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1977, DC Comics
What it’s about: “Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is a man wrestling with a secret. Nine years ago, Pierce was gifted with the superhuman power to harness and control electricity, which he used to keep his hometown streets safe as the masked vigilante Black Lightning. However, after too many nights with his life and his family on the line, he left his Super Hero days behind. Almost a decade later, Pierce’s crime-fighting days are long behind him…or so he thought. But with crime and corruption spreading like wildfire, Black Lightning returns—to save not only his family, but also the soul of his community.”
Status: Season 1 premiered January 16.
Black Panther (Film, Marvel Studios)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1966, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: After the events of Captain America: Civil War, T’Challa “returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to take his place as King. However, when an old enemy reappears on the radar, T’Challa’s mettle as King and Black Panther is tested when he is drawn into a conflict that puts the entire fate of Wakanda and the world at risk.”
Status: Came to theaters February 16. Read our review!
Daredevil (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: the Marvel Comics character created by Stan Lee (writer) and Bill Everett (artist)
Originally published: 1964, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: After an accident takes away his sight but gives him heightened senses, lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) must protect Hell’s Kitchen from criminals while dealing with other vigilantes like The Punisher (Jon Bernthal), as well as his ex-girlfriend Elektra Natchios (Élodie Yung).
Status: Season 3 will premiere sometime in 2018, after Daredevil’s appearance in Marvel and Netflix’s The Defenders.
The Defenders (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics characters
Originally published: N/A
What it’s about: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist team up in New York City against a threat (which will somehow involve Sigourney Weaver).
Status: Premiered August 18. Check out our coverage. No word set on season 2.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (Television, BBC America)
Adapted from: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Originally published: 1987, Pocket Books (US) and William Heinemann Ltd. (UK)
What it’s about: Max Landis’ adaptation of Adams’ novel (which he once described as a “thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic”) follows the adventures of eccentric “holistic detective” Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett), who believes everything to be interconnected, his sidekick Todd Brotzman (Elijah Wood), and at least one corgi.
Status: Season 2 premiered October 22. New cast members included Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Powerless), John Hannah (The Mummy, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Amanda Walsh (Lost Girl), and more.
The Exorcist (Television, Fox)
Adapted from: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Originally published: 1971, Harper & Row
What it’s about: Father Tomas Ortega (Sense8‘s Alfonso Herrera) investigates the apparent possession of teenager Katherine Rance, whose family are members of his congregation. On the other side of the world, Father Marcus Brennan (House of Cards‘ Ben Daniels) is a modern-day Templar Knight battling the forces of evil.
Status: Season 2 premiered September 29.
The Expanse (Television, Syfy)
Adapted from: The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck)
Originally published: 2011, Orbit Books
What it’s about: Hundreds of years in the future, humans have colonized the solar system, but tensions have war simmering among Earth, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt. The disappearance of Julie Mao (Florence Faivre) brings together a hardened detective (Thomas Jane) and a rogue ship’s captain (Steven Strait), pointing them toward a massive conspiracy. Read our reviews of season 1.
Status: Catch up with our season 2 reviews. The Expanse will return for season 3 in 2018!
Game of Thrones (Television, HBO)
Adapted from: A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
Originally published: 1996, Bantam Books
What it’s about: In Westeros, rival ruling families—Starks, Lannisters, Greyjoys, Targaryens, and more—wage war for control of the Iron Throne, aided or hindered by fire-breathing dragons and the mysterious Others.
Status: Season 8, the final season, will premiere sometime in 2019.
The Gifted (Television, Fox)
Adapted from: various X-Men comics by various writers and artists
Originally published: various
What it’s about: After their son has a Carrie-like outburst that reveals his latent mutant powers, his parents (Amy Acker and Stephen Moyer) must go on the run with gifted son and daughter. With the help of mutants Eclipse (Sean Teale) and Blink (Jamie Chung), they must evade government agents who want to study their superpowered children.
Status: Premiered October 2.
The Handmaid’s Tale (Television, Hulu)
Adapted from: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Originally published: 1985, McClelland and Stewart
What it’s about: Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a handmaid, or concubine, belonging to a wealthy couple in the totalitarian Republic of Gilead. She narrates the story of how Gilead came to be, as well as her small and large acts of sedition within the established hierarchy, and her search for her missing family.
Status: Season 2 premieres April 25. Watch the first teaser!
HAPPY! (Television, Syfy)
Adapted from: HAPPY! by Grant Morrison (writer) and Darick Robertson (artist)
Originally published: 2012, Image Comics
What it’s about: After a shootout lands him in the ICU, ex-cop-turned-hitman Nick Sax (Chris Meloni) gets visited by a tiny blue horse named Happy (Patton Oswalt)… the invisible friend of a girl being held captive by a child murderer dressed as Santa Claus. As Christmas bells begin ringing, Sax must team up with this figment of a child’s imagination to find her.
Status: Morrison and writer-director Brian Taylor co-wrote the pilot and are set as executive producers. Premiered November 29. Renewed for season 2!
Inhumans (Television, Marvel Studios/ABC)
Adapted from: various Marvel Comics by various authors and artists
Originally published: 1965, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: “After the Royal Family of Inhumans is splintered by a military coup, they barely escape to Hawaii where their surprising interactions with the lush world and humanity around them may prove to not only save them, but Earth itself.” (More about the show.)
Status: Premiered September 1 in IMAX theaters, September 26 on ABC. The show’s fate is unclear.
Iron Fist (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: the Marvel Comics character created by Roy Thomas (writer) and Gil Kane (artist)
Originally published: 1974, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Danny Rand (Finn Jones) returns to New York City after 15 years to reclaim his place in his family’s company. But when a threat endangers the city, he must choose between his family’s legacy and his duties as Iron Fist.
Status: Read our coverage of the first season. It seems as if there will be a season 2, though it has not yet been confirmed.
Jessica Jones (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: Jessica Jones: Alias by Brian Michael Bendis (writer) and Michael Gaydos (artist)
Originally published: 2001, Marvel Comics/MAX
What it’s about: Superhero-turned-private investigator Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) juggles her messy love life and whiskey habit with helping other wayward souls. After facing off with Kilgrave (David Tennant), she concentrates on keeping Alias Investigations open.
Status: Season 2 premieres March 8, a.k.a. International Women’s Day. Watch the first teaser!
Legion (Television, FX Productions/Marvel Television)
Adapted from: New Mutants #25 by Chris Claremont (writer) and Bill Sienkiewicz (artist)
Originally published: 1985, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: David Haller (Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens) is a troubled young man who experiences visions and hears voices in his head… only to realize that his supposed mental illness is actually a mutation, and he may even be the son of a member of the X-Men. Aubrey Plaza, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton, and Bill Irwin also star.
Status: Read our review of season 1. Season 2 is expected to premiere in early 2018; check out highlights from the SDCC panel.
Lucifer (Television, Fox)
Adapted from: The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (writer) and Sam Kieth (artist), and Lucifer by Mike Carey (writer) and Scott Hampton, Chris Weston, and James Hodgins (artists)
Originally published: 1989, Vertigo
What it’s about: Bored of Hell, Lucifer (Merlin‘s Tom Ellis) abandons his throne for Los Angeles, where he opens a nightclub called Lux. But it’s not all fun and games of making people express their darkest desires; when a starlet gets murdered, he decides to team up with the LAPD, even as he’s dodging angels demanding he return to the underworld. Read our pilot review.
Status: Season 3 premiered October 2.
Luke Cage (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: the Marvel Comics character created by Archie Goodwin (writer), John Romita, Sr. (artist), and George Tuska (artist)
Originally published: 1972, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: After a sabotaged experiment makes him unbreakable, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) battles for the heart of Harlem while trying to get over the death of his wife Reva as well as his fling with Jessica Jones.
Status: No word yet on when in 2018 season 2 premieres, but Luke Cage returned in Marvel and Netflix’s The Defenders. In the meantime, read our commentary on season 1.
The Magicians (Television, Syfy)
Adapted from: The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Originally published: 2009, Viking
What it’s about: In this adaptation of Lev Grossman’s bestselling series, Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) discovers that the magical world he read about as a child is real when he is accepted to the prestigious (and very secret) Brakebills University. Alongside old and new friends, Quentin learns that magic is just one part of a curriculum that goes live work play study screw drink cram… drink.
Status: Season 3 premiered January 10.
The Man in the High Castle (Television, Amazon Studios)
Adapted from: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Originally published: 1962, Putnam
What it’s about: The Man in the High Castle presents an alternate history where America loses World War II and is split between Nazi Germany and Japan. Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) receives a mysterious film reel from her sister, who is then murdered; the film reel contains glimpses of an alternate reality in which the United States won the war. Juliana sets out to find the person who created the reel—The Man in the High Castle. Read our review.
Status: Amazon has greenlit a third season; watch a clip.
Midnight, Texas (Television, NBC)
Adapted from: Midnight, Texas by Charlaine Harris
Originally published: 2014, Ace
What it’s about: In Charlaine Harris’ series, phone psychic Manfred Bernardo relocates to Midnight, Texas, and then winds up overstaying his welcome—probably because of all the murders. It’s certainly an intriguing town, from the way executive producer David Janollari (Six Feet Under) describes it: “It’s where humans and the supernatural co-exist, and where everyone has a secret. It’s equal parts humorous, sexy, and downright scary.”
Status: Renewed for a second season.
Mr. Mercedes (Television, Audience Network)
Adapted from: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Originally published: 2014, Scribner
What it’s about: When a killer dubbed “Mr. Mercedes” (Penny Dreadful’s Harry Treadaway), due to the grisly nature of his automobile crime, taunts retired detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) with a series of lurid letters and emails, Hodges must stir himself from his depression to stop Mr. Mercedes from killing again.
Status: Renewed for season 2, which will be based on King’s Bill Hodges trilogy: Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch.
Outlander (Television, Starz)
Adapted from: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Originally published: 1991, Delacorte Books
What it’s about: On a second honeymoon in Scotland in 1945, former WWII nurse Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) is transported back in time to Scotland in 1743, where she falls in love with Highland warrior Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).
Status: Season 4 premieres sometime in 2018.
Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (Television, Amazon Prime/Channel 4)
Adapted from: the works of Philip K. Dick
Originally published: various
What it’s about: Ronald D. Moore’s (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander) anthology series series will draw from PKD’s entire body of work, adapting his stories in order to “illustrate Dick’s prophetic vision and celebrate the enduring appeal of the prized sci-fi novelist’s work.”
Status: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne co-wrote scripts with Moore, who executive produced alongside Michael Dinner (Justified, Masters of Sex) and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), who will also star in at least one episode. Stars of other installments include Steve Buscemi, Anna Paquin, Terrence Howard, Benedict Wong, and Janelle Monáe as the villain in the adaptation of “Autofac”!
The Punisher (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: the Marvel Comics character created by Gerry Conway (writer) and John Romita, Sr. (artist)
Originally published: 1974, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Brutal vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) will bring his own brand of “justice” to Hell’s Kitchen in this spinoff after his supporting role on Daredevil.
Status: Read our coverage of season 1, which premiered November 17.
Preacher (Television, AMC)
Adapted from: Preacher by Garth Ennis (writer) and Steve Dillon (artist)
Originally published: 1995, Vertigo
What it’s about: After getting accidentally possessed by a heavenly (and hellish) creature called Genesis, Reverend Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) goes on a quest to find God. Joining him along the way are his ex-girlfriend Tulip O’Hare (Ruth Negga) and wise-cracking Irish vampire Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun).
Status: Season 3 will premiere sometime in 2018.
Riverdale (Television, The CW)
Adapted from: Archie Comics by Mark Waid (writer) and Fiona Staples, Annie Chu, and Veronica Flash (artists)
Originally published: 2015, Archie Comics
What it’s about: Based on some of the more daring Archie Comics issues of recent memory, Riverdale (executive produced by Greg Berlanti, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and others) looks to be a mashup of Pretty Little Liars and Twin Peaks: The usual high-school angst and love triangles are all still here, but set against an ominous backdrop that begins with the mysterious death of Riverdale’s golden boy. Watch the first trailer!
Status: Season 2 premiered October 11.
Runaways (Television, Hulu)
Adapted from: Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
Originally published: 2003, Marvel Comics
What it’s about: Upon discovering that their parents are supervillains, six teenagers steal or embrace newfound superpowers and fight to right their parents’ wrongdoings.
Status: Josh Schwartz (The O.C.) and Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl) wrote the pilot and executive produced alongside Marvel Television’s Jeph Loeb (who had a hand in Jessica Jones) and Jim Chory (Daredevil). Season 1 premiered November 21; read our non-spoiler review of the pilot. Renewed for a second season.
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Television, Netflix)
Adapted from: A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
Originally published: 1999, Scholastic
What it’s about: Orphans Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are sent to live with their odious guardian Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), who seeks to murder them and steal their inheritance. Over the course of Snicket’s tongue-in-cheek series, the Baudelaires weather adventures more perilous than the last and discover the truth behind their parents’ death in a fire. The 2004 movie, with Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, was underwhelming.
Status: Netflix has renewed the series for even more unfortunate second and third seasons, with the latter ending the series. Check out first-look photos from season 2, which premieres March 30.
The Tick (Television, Amazon Studios/Sony Television)
Adapted from: New England Comics Newsletter by Ben Edlund
Originally published: 1986, New England Comics Press
What it’s about: Deadline sums it up: “The Tick centers on an underdog accountant with zero powers who comes to realize his city is owned by a global super villain long-thought dead. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero.”
Status: Ben Edlund, who created The Tick and oversaw the first two TV iterations, serves as writer and executive producer. The second half of season 1 premieres February 23; watch the latest trailer! And it’s been renewed for a second season.
Wynonna Earp (Television, Syfy)
Adapted from: Wynonna Earp by Beau Smith
Originally published: 1996, Image Comics (currently published by IDW Publishing)
What it’s about: The great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp, saddled with the family curse and a six-shooter, fights the demonic Revenants—ghosts of the criminals Wyatt once put down—in her hometown of Purgatory.
Status: Renewed for season 3.
Note: We’re sure we missed a few, but will update the post based on your suggestions!
This article has been updated since its original publication in April 2016.
Natalie Zutter never in all of her dreams thought she’d see this many SFF properties getting adapted at once. Geek out with her about all these adaptations on Twitter.
