10 Beloved Books Headed to the Small Screen (PHOTOS)
You (Lifetime, September 9)
We’re only weeks away from the series premiere of Lifetime’s adaptation of Caroline Kepnes’s 2013 novel. Penn Badgley plays a bookstore owner whose fixation on Elizabeth Lail’s aspiring writer character becomes obsessive… and then deadly. (Suddenly, Gossip Girl isn’t so creepy…)
Nightflyers (Syfy, 2018)
Based upon a short story collection by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, this futuristic series tracks a team of scientists searching for alien life and embarking on a journey “to the edge of the solar system, and to the edge of their sanity,” Syfy says. Gretchen Mol and Brían F. O’Byrne star.
Vanity Fair (ITV, 2018)
ITV is taking another crack at this 1848 William Makepeace Thackeray story — a classic of Victorian literature — with Olivia Cooke playing social climber Becky Sharp, Tom Bateman playing eligible bachelor Rawdon Crawley, and Michael Palin playing the author himself.
Good Omens (Amazon Prime, 2019)
Based on a 1990 collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, this upcoming Amazon Prime series has David Tennant and Michael Sheen playing a demon and an angel — respectively — trying to thwart the coming of the antichrist. Meanwhile, Jon Hamm plays the leader of the forces of Heaven, while Frances McDormand (fittingly) provides the voice of God.
A Discovery of Witches (Sky One, TBA)
Deborah Harkness’s supernatural trilogy gets the TV treatment in this upcoming Sky One series starring Teresa Palmer as witch Diana Bishop and Matthew Goode as vampire Matthew Clairmont. Diana and Matthew happen upon a magical tome at the center of an escalating conflict between witches, vampires, and daemons. (Calling all Twihards…)
Are You Sleeping (Apple, TBA)
Apple is getting into the scripted TV game, and it has enlisted Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, Emmy winner Aaron Paul, and Emmy nominee Lizzy Caplan for this series based on the 2017 novel by Kathleen Barber. In the series, Spencer will play a true-crime podcast host investigating a decades-old murder conviction, Paul will play the convicted murderer, and Caplan will play the twin daughters of the victim.
Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu, TBA)
Reese Witherspoon — already a producer of the aforementioned Are You Sleeping — has paired up with Kerry Washington to bring this 2017 Celeste Ng bestseller to Hulu subscribers. The story follows a mother-daughter duo who upend a family’s seemingly-perfect suburban existence.
The Rook (Starz, TBA)
Emma Greenwell, Joely Richardson, and Olivia Munn will star in this supernatural Starz thriller, an adaptation of a 2012 Daniel O’Malley novel about a woman who works for a secret British agency that protects the world from supernatural threats… before her life is threatened by a mole within the organization.
Untitled Reese Witherspoon/Jennifer Aniston Series (Apple, TBA)
Yes, Reese has another TV project on the slate… and another one at Apple! She and Jennifer Aniston will executive-produce and star this drama series — partially based on Brian Stelter’s 2013 book Top of the Morning — about the inner workings of an early-morning show akin to Today or GMA. Apple has already given the green light for two seasons.
Y (FX, TBA)
Diane Lane, Amber Tamblyn, Lashana Lynch, and Marin Ireland rank among the cast of this adaptation of the comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra — a story about a world in which a man and his pet monkey are the only two males left in the world. (Hashtag, the future is female.)
Television reboots and revivals are all the rage these days, but TV adaptations are still in high demand as networks search for the next Handmaid’s Tale, Big Little Lies, or Game of Thrones.
We’ve listed some of their upcoming offerings below — stories making the leap from the page to the screen. These TV shows range from family dramas to psychological thrillers to supernatural adventures, and many boast dazzling star-power. (Spoiler: It’ll be a busy year for one Reese Witherspoon.)
Click through the gallery above for the book-to-TV transfers we’re excited to check out…
