A Roundup of Upcoming Book-to-Screen Adaptations in 2024

Before 2023 ends, the year of some of the best book-to-screen adaptations, let us quickly glimpse at the book-to-screen adaptations in 2024 that we are going to wait for with bated breath!

For book lovers, adaptations of their favorite works can generate some strong emotions. Book adaptations have run the gamut of quality, from instant classics to loathsome unmentionables. Making a watchlist of book-to-screen adaptations for the upcoming year is a difficult task for other reasons too – the deluge of films and shows on the many streaming services, shifting release dates, and frequent and surprising cancellations. Considering all this, the list below can’t exactly be called the definitive roundup. It is split into two sections–the adaptations with confirmed release dates and those without.

Fool Me Once, Harlan Coben –1 January 2024

The 8-part series based on the book with the same title by Harlan Coben starts streaming on Netflix in January. Starring  Michelle Keegan, Richard Armitage, Adeel Akhtar and Joanna Lumley, Fool Me Once is a thriller that follows a family shaken by two murders. But former special ops pilot Maya, who recently returned from war, sees footage of her husband, Joe–who was brutally murdered a few weeks before–back as an intruder and playing with their child. At the same time, her niece and nephew are trying to discover the truth about their mother’s death and start finding similarities between the two murders. 

The End We Start From –19 January 2024

Starring Jodie Comer, with Joel Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Katherine Waterston and Mark Strong, The End We Start From is a British survival film adapted from Megan Hunter’s 2017 book of the same name. The book is a dystopian vision of an unspecified environmental disaster. London is flooded and submerged below water. A woman gives birth in the midst of the chaos and is forced to abandon her home and flee northwards with her child for safety. The plot traces their journey from one ramshackle shelter to another. The child grows and thrives despite the dangerous world he was born into, as his mother, played by Jodie Comer, tries to keep them both safe in her newly unfamiliar and unstable world.

Expats –26 January 2024

Based on the 2016 novel The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee, Expats tells the story of the personal and professional lives of a close-knit expatriate community in Hong Kong. The main characters are three women who find their lives colliding following an incident. All three leads have vibrant, affluent and cosmopolitan lifestyles. Their friendships are intense and public but ironically temporary, riddled with cultural and economic challenges, personal highs and lows, tragedies and struggles. Mercy is a recent graduate, stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage and destructive behaviour. Margaret, once secure in her identity as a married mother of three, has been left unanchored in the wake of great loss. And finally, Hillary is a wealthy housewife trying to save her floundering marriage by having a child. The Amazon Prime show stars Nicole Kidman, Ji-young Yoo, Jack Huston and Sarayu Blue.

Orion and the Dark –2 February 2024

Set to drop on Netflix early next year, Orion and the Dark is an animated fantasy-adventure film adaptation of  Emma Yarlett’s children’s book. With a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, Orion and the Dark tackles the most ubiquitous of all classic childhood fears–the dark. However, Orion has it harder than most; his every waking hour (and much of his dreaming hours) is consumed by a totalising fear of everything. He’s afraid of bees and dogs, clowns, cliffs, cell phone waves, and oceans. What he’s most afraid of is the one he has to face every night–the dark. For all his shy, unassuming exterior, Orion is an anxious wreck. And so the Dark pays him a visit, physically embodying his worst fear, to whisk him away on an adventure and prove there’s really nothing so dangerous that it should control every aspect of one’s life. Orion and the Dark stars Jacob Tremblay as Orion and Paul Walter Hauser as Dark.

Also Read: All Oscar-Winning Animated Movies Ranked from Worst to Best

Argylle –2 February 2024

In an uncharacteristic twist for a debut novel, Elly Conway’s Argylle is set to release only a month before the film premiers in the United States. The film’s protagonist, also named Elly, is, in fact, the in-universe author of the Argylle novels. Putting a rather meta spin on all this, Elly, the spy-novelist, soon discovers that the world she invented for her books is instead hitting rather close to home as she gets drawn into a real-life espionage mission involving a sinister underground syndicate, a Russian magnate, legendary spymasters and undercover detectives. The ensemble cast includes Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Dune: Part Two –15 March 2024

Originally slated for a late 2023 release, the release of Dune: Part Two has been delayed due to the recent labour disputes in Hollywood. The second entry in the two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune will continue the story from where Part One ended: Paul Atreides’ efforts to unite the desert tribes of the Fremen and lead them in revolt against the emperor and House Harkonnen in retaliation for the destruction of House Atreides and the assassination of Paul’s father, Duke Leto. As he seeks revenge, Paul must also endeavour to prevent a crusade from spreading across the universe in his name. New additions to the cast include Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, and Christopher Walken.

3 Body Problem –21 March 2024

The 3 Body Problem is an upcoming sci-fi show produced by Netflix based on The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Liu’s book portrays an alternative history for Earth, which encounters an alien civilization from a planet in a star system with three sun-like stars orbiting one another. The book is known for its complex and winding plot, deeply rooted in Chinese history. The trailer focuses almost entirely on the mysterious and immersive virtual reality game Three-Body, which transports players to a lifelike recreation of a planet with unstable and disastrous weather changes. Changing tracks from the very Chinese story of the novel, the TV show features a global cast list including Benedict Wong, John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Rosalind Chao and Jonathan Pryce.

Mickey 17 –29 March 2024

Mickey 17 is an upcoming adaptation of the 2022 science fiction novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. Mickey is a disposable employee attached to a human expedition sent to colonise the icy world of Niflheim. These disposable humans are called “expendables” and are expected to perform tasks that are otherwise too dangerous for normal humans. Each iteration of an expendable is a regenerated body after the death of the previous one. Their memories are kept intact; trouble ensues when Mickey is prematurely replaced by the next iteration and must hide his existence. The film stars Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.

Also Read: 10 Films To Watch If You Like Nope (2022)

The Watchers –7 June 2024

Based on A. M. Shine’s 2021 book of the same name, The Watchers is an upcoming supernatural horror film starring Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell. A dark, expansive forest in western Ireland has a history of causing vehicle malfunctions. Left stranded in this uncharted forest, Mina finds herself surrounded by three strangers and trapped in an isolated bunker. The forest outside is stalked by monsters who pick out stragglers left outside the bunker. The story draws heavily from unsettling Irish folklore to exacerbate the atmosphere of horror. As the four come to realise they are being held in a room filled with glass and leered at like zoo animals, Mina tries to solve the mystery of the watchers: who they are and what they want.

Rothko –25 October 2024

Based on The Legacy of Mark Rothko by Lee Seldes, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Rothko is set to trace the events of a protracted legal battle of an estate lawsuit brought by the painter’s daughter, Kate, against the executors of her father’s estate. Following Rothko’s suicide in 1970, his entire legacy of paintings was sold by his estate executors to the Marlborough Galleries at reduced values. The lawsuit, popularly known as the Rothko Case, dragged on for 10 years. This tale of greed, betrayal and double-crossing boasts an impressive cast with Russell Crowe as the celebrated painter Mark Rothko, Aisling Franciosi as Kate Rothko, and Jared Harris, Michael Stuhlbarg and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in supporting roles.

The Amateur –8 November 2024

The upcoming espionage thriller is based on Robert Littell’s 1981 novel of the same name. Starring Rami Malek, Caitríona Balfe, Laurence Fishburne, Holt McCallany and Julianne Nicholson, The Amateur follows Charles Heller, a CIA cryptographer who loses his wife in a London terrorist attack. He soon realises that there is no response to be expected from the agency, no secret mission planned for pursuing the terrorists into Europe due to conflicting priorities. A deskbound egghead, Heller is no field agent. But he decides to blackmail his bosses into training him and letting him go after the terrorists. Once his elaborate plan to blackmail and take a crash course in becoming a field agent succeeds, Heller is immediately faced with another obstacle: the CIA actively wants him to fail.

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Wicked: Part One –27 November 2024

Wicked is the first instalment in the upcoming two-part musical-fantasy film adaptation of Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz’s stage musical, which is based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West which is, in turn, based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and its 1939 film adaptation. Set in the fantastical land of Oz, the plot revolves around the life and times of Elphaba, a green-skinned woman who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. The bulk of the stage show’s runtime covered Elphaba and  Galinda Upland’s (later Glinda the Good Witch) unlikely friendship as they navigate their competing personalities, a shared love interest, and opposing responses to the Wonderful Wizard Oz’s corrupt governmental policies. The film is set to star Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Galinda, with Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh in supporting roles.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim –13 December 2024

This upcoming animated fantasy film is based on The Lord of the Rings novels by J. R. R. Tolkien and has a screenplay by Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou. Set 183 years before the events of The Two Towers, The War of the Rohirrim is a prequel starring Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand, a legendary King of Rohan who defended his kingdom against an army of Dunlendings, who were a bitter enemy of the Rohirrim. The great fortified gorge protected by the stronghold Hornburg was named Helm’s Deep after Helm Hammerhand. The film also stars Miranda Otto, who reprises her role as Éowyn from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and Luke Pasqualino as Wulf, son of Freca and the commander of the Dunlendings.

Dead Boy Detectives –April 2024

The latest of the Netflix adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s oeuvre, the Dead Boy Detectives follows the titular two-man detective agency. Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland are the brains and the brawn of this supernatural mystery-solving agency. Whether it’s an errant haunting or a case of stolen memories, the Dead Boy Detectives are the ones to call. They are also quite literally dead. They met each other for the first time when only one half of the duo was alive, until he too shuffled off this mortal coil and forwent the afterlife to remain with the other. They made their debut in Sandman #25 in the ’90s. Gaiman created them as a macabre spin on the popular boarding school genre of British children’s literature. The eight-episode miniseries stars George Rexstrew as Edwin and Jayden Revri as Charles.

Also Read: A Thematic Analysis of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman Comic Book

The Sympathizer – N/A

The Sympathizer is an upcoming HBO miniseries adapted from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 debut novel. The historical black-comedy drama will follow the Captain as he flees to the United States near the end of the Vietnam War. The Captain has his own secrets – He was a North Vietnamese plant in the South Vietnam army. While insinuating himself into a community of South Vietnamese refugees, he continues spying on the community and reporting back to the Viet Cong, risking discovery and struggling with the competing priorities of his original loyalty and his new life in the States. The main cast includes Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, and Robert Downey Jr. Sandra Oh features as a recurring character.

A Gentleman in Moscow – N/A 

Amor Towles’s bestselling 2016 novel of the same name is being made into a TV series for Showtime. With Mary Elizabeth Winstead and husband Ewan McGregor in leading roles, A Gentleman in Moscow recounts the tale of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is spared execution after the Russian Revolution in 1917 but is put under house arrest and banished to a hotel attic by a Bolshevik tribunal. Rostov is banned from leaving the hotel on pain of death. As the tumultuous decades pass him by outside the four walls of his room, Rostov, now fallen far from his once gilded lifestyle, gets accustomed to a life without his material wealth but slowly finds himself building lasting friendships with the other inhabitants.

Spaceman – N/A

Spaceman is an upcoming science fiction film based on the 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. Starring Adam Sandler, Paul Dano, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, and Isabella Rossellini in the leading roles, Spaceman is an all-too-human story of Jakub Procházka, orphaned as a boy and raised by his grandparents as he rises past his humble beginnings as a small-time scientist to become the first astronaut of an independent Czech Republic. As is the theme of many sci-fi tales, the urge to leave Earth behind and fling oneself into the void of space is fuelled by a desire to escape the past. Jakub is sent on a dangerous eight-month space mission to the edge of the galaxy and soon finds his mission has gone awry. Spaceman is scheduled to be released by Netflix in 2024.

Cold Storage – N/A

Cold Storage is David Koepp’s adaptation of his own 2019 novel bearing the same title. The book was Koepp’s debut work and was a thriller about three strangers who work together to try and contain a highly contagious, deadly, mutating organism, which is capable of causing extinction-level catastrophes. In the Australian outback, this festering fungi had taken over the bodies of the few surrounding inhabitants before our protagonist, Roberto Diaz, managed to raze it to the ground. But the sole surviving sample has found its way to freedom and is back with a vengeance and insatiable hunger. Accompanied only by two unwitting security guards, Diaz must, over the course of one harrowing night, figure out how to be rid of this malignant mushroom once and for all. The film stars Liam Neeson, Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell.

The Spiderwick Chronicles – N/A

The Spiderwick Chronicles is an eight-episode TV show based on the popular book series by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. This long-awaited adaptation has reached its final home at Paramount and Roku following its cancellation by Disney+. The twins Jared and Simon Grace and their older sister Mallory move into the decrepit Spiderwick Estate in Michigan with their strict but caring mother. The children soon stumble upon a hidden and magical world populated by fairies and other fantastical creatures such as griffins, hobgoblins, ogres, trolls, dragons and dwarves. The children set about discovering this mystical world, guided by Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You. The series will premiere in early 2024. The main cast includes Lyon Daniels, Noah Cottrell, Joy Bryant, Mychala Lee, Jack Dylan Grazer and Christian Slater.

Heartstopper, S03 – N/A

Heartstopper has been renewed for a third season, which is set to drop on Netflix in 2024. The first two seasons of this acclaimed show covered the events of volumes 1 to 3 of the graphic novel series also written by showrunner Alice Oseman. Season two ended with some serious revelations about Charlie’s history of bullying. It tackled much heavier themes than the relatively light and sweet first season, including eating disorders, the pressure and stress of coming out, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. The exact plot of season three is still under wraps, but it can be assumed that the show will pick up the events of the 4th volume of the graphic novel, released in 2021. Only the title of Season Three’s first episode has been revealed – “Love.”

Related to Heartstopper on Netflix: 5 Feel-Good Books to Read Like Heartstopper