Some studios believe that upcoming novels hold such promise, they purchase the rights to the movie adaptation before the book has even been published. This was the case with some movie adaptations better than the source material, demonstrating the keen eye of some directors and producers. Other movie rights were only bought ahead of time because they exhibited obvious genre popularity, and the studio executives knew they shouldn’t pass up the chance to produce the movie fast.
The best YA book adaptations were produced in rapid succession because of the knowledge that the particular subgenre was popular, and getting the movie out before it faded away was advisable. Yet there are still some book-to-movie adaptations that were bought early for no reason other than quality and resulted in stellar finished products. Other than a few rare cases of horrible adaptations, this was in service of giving the fans the movie they wanted without having to wait too long.
10 The Godfather (1972)
Book By Mario Puzo
The Offer changes the book/movie timeline of The Godfather for its miniseries about the circumstances of the landmark movie’s production. Paramount bought the rights to The Godfather in 1967, before author Mario Puzo had even completed it (via LA Times). This paycheck even allowed Puzo to be able to complete the novel. While Paramount originally envisioned a much smaller-scale movie, Francis Ford Coppola transformed the project once he was hired.
Coppola and Puzo worked together to write the screenplay, while the book was released and production of the movie got underway. Given Puzo’s average career as an author and Paramount’s less ambitious plans for the adaptations, there is no definitive reason to believe that studio executives knew what they had stumbled onto and bought the rights before someone else got the privilege of making the movie. They got lucky with the source material and the director, leading to arguably the best gangster movie of all time.
9 The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
Book By Suzanne Collins
Sunrise on the Reaping is moving even faster through the book-to-movie pipeline, with a book release in 2025 and a movie release in 2026.
Suzanne Collins surprised her dormant fanbase with the announcement that she was writing a Hunger Games prequel, more than a decade since the last book. Shortly after, Lionsgate confirmed that it was already setting up a movie adaptation, unsurprisingly confident in the potential blockbuster and only too happy to return to the profits of the old Hunger Games movies.
While The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was released in May 2020, the movie came out in November 2023. Furthermore, The Hunger Games franchise is now planning on the same thing with Collins’ next novel, Sunrise on the Reaping, following the events of the 50th Hunger Games (24 years before The Hunger Games and 40 years after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes).
Sunrise on the Reaping is moving even faster through the book-to-movie pipeline, with a book release in 2025 and a movie release in 2026. Given that The Hunger Games is Lionsgate’s most profitable franchise, it is logical that they are invested in fast adaptations, based on remaining goodwill for the series.
8 Hidden Figures (2016)
Book By Margot Lee Shetterly
The Hidden Figures book was released in September 2016, while the movie became available in public movie theaters only a few days into 2017 (it is generally said to be a 2016 release due to earlier screenings). The movie and book would have been completed alongside each other, with author Margot Lee Shetterly credited as both a writer and executive producer for the movie. Deadline reported on both the upcoming Hidden Figures book and movie in July 2015, mentioning some of the actresses considered who would eventually be cast.
Hidden Figures is a biographical drama, and the events depicted would have been great to be seen as a movie regardless if a book had been written first. Oscar-hopeful directors often turn to history as the basis for their projects, but Shetterly’s book contributed to a movie with fully realized characters. With an invested author already doing a significant amount of research and writing, Hidden Figures was on its way to being an even better movie.
7 The Martian (2015)
Book By Andy Weir
Sci-fi author Andy Weir technically did write The Martian before he got his movie deal, but his story is unique. Unable to secure a publishing deal, Weir was publishing The Martian one chapter at a time online and selling a 99-cent version of the book via Kindle before both the movie and the publishing deals happened around the same time in 2013 (via PEOPLE). Crown Publishing re-released the book in 2014, while The Martian began its journey to the Oscars a year later.
Space adventures have long been lucrative for Hollywood, especially when they are directed by Ridley Scott. Gravity was also released in 2013, going on to become another Oscar contender. After having ignored The Martian for two years, everyone in the business was scrambling to acquire it and repeat the thrilling yet artistic successes of Gravity, Alien, and other movies like them.
6 The Fault In Our Stars (2014)
Book By John Green
The timeline of The Fault in Our Stars is very narrow: the book was published on January 10, 2012, while Publishers Weekly reported on January 31, 2012 that Fox had optioned the rights to the movie. Major news outlets were already talking about The Fault in Our Stars in early and mid-January, but it’s not likely that Fox executives started the process only once they had heard these reviews. Someone at Fox probably got an advance copy and was already in talks to adapt it before publication.
At the time, Green had already published An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska, but neither had led to major movie adaptations. The Fault in Our Stars would become linked with the YA dystopia era because of the involvement of Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, but they wouldn’t have yet known that they could count on Divergent fans showing up. Fox probably believed that the story would make a good movie and only hoped that it would appeal to a young adult audience.
5 Twilight (2008
Book By Stephenie Meyer
Twilight would give rise to other vampire stories in movies and TV, but vampires did not have such a status that it would be automatically assumed that a studio would invest in the book long before it was out. MTV Films bought the rights to Twilight in April 2004, with the book’s future publication set for October 2005 (via EW).
At this time, MTV envisioned a movie very different from Stephenie Meyer’s book.Twilight‘s original script had a vampire slayer Bella, perhaps trying to reinvent Buffy’s legacy. However, the project went into turnaround and was bought by Summit Entertainment in 2006.
Given both the early movie option and the bidding war for the Twilight books, it seems like the entertainment industry just had a sense that Twilight was going to be a new pop culture phenomenon. Right around the same time as the movie’s release, True Blood began its run in 2008 with The Vampire Diaries following in 2009.
4 World War Z (2013)
Book By Max Brooks
Plan B Entertainment won the rights to adapt World War Z in June 2006, a few months before the book’s release (via Variety). The movie faced significant delays during development before finally hitting theaters in 2013. Notably, World War Z drastically changes the book’s ending, moving away from the source material’s fresh take on the zombie apocalypse genre to a more classic action movie structure.
From the time that several studios entered a bidding war for World War Z to its era as a beloved novel to being critiqued as a lackluster adaptation, the “oral history of the zombie war” has seen several high and low points. Despite its future in Hollywood, Max Brooks’ novel garnered a lot of interest that set it up to have an allegedly quick adaptation. Brooks had previously written The Zombie Survival Guide, a fictional manual to his apocalypse, setting the stage for his most famous book and all the hype surrounding it.
3 The Lovely Bones (2009)
Book By Alice Sebold
The creatives at Film4 production were the ones who saw the potential early on in The Lovely Bones but, unfortunately, didn’t get to see the payoff from betting on the story.
Film4 Productions originally bought the movie rights to The Lovely Bones in 2000, before Alice Sebold had even finished the book (via Variety). After Film4 was shut down, the rights became a point of interest for several major Hollywood studios, as this was right around the time The Lovely Bones was on the bestseller list. Peter Jackson became personally invested in adapting the movie, discussing the book in a 2005 interview with MovieWeb.
The creatives at Film4 production were the ones who saw the potential early on in The Lovely Bones but, unfortunately, didn’t get to see the payoff from betting on the story. Despite its strong cast, Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones was review-bombed on Rotten Tomatoes. While the director may have been as mesmerized by the story as everyone else, it is possible that he should have stuck to his familiar subgenres of fantasy.
2 The Hate U Give (2018)
Book By Angie Thomas
Debut author Angie Thomas saw a huge demand for her novel The Hate U Give, which was won by HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray in a fierce bidding war in 2016, while the movie rights were picked up by Fox shortly after. The novel was released a year later, and the movie only a year after that. In 2017, Alexandra Alter wrote an article for The New York Times about the “new crop of young adult novels exploring race and police brutality,” in which it is mentioned that Thomas wondered if she wouldn’t be able to sell The Hate U Give because of its “polarizing” subject matter.
Both the book and movie adaptation of The Hate U Give were widely praised, making Thomas one of the most important YA authors to follow and taking Amandla Stenberg’s career to its next phase. Thomas worked alongside the movie’s director to make some adjustments to the story for the big screen. Meanwhile, the author has continued to have a groundbreaking career, including the bestselling prequel to The Hate U Give, Concrete Rose.
1 Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)
Book By Casey McQuiston
Red, White & Royal Blue is also an author’s debut novel engaging with current socio-political questions that garnered Hollywood’s interest early. Casey McQuiston’s premise is out-of-this-world and crowd-pleasing but incorporates an impressive number of historical and cultural references. Amazon Prime bought the movie rights for Red, White & Royal Blue in April 2019, a month before the book was published (via Deadline).
Prime was likely drawn to the premise and encouraged by great early reviews. However, the movie’s production was delayed due to lockdown and the release was pushed back to 2023. Red, White & Royal Blue is one of the quintessential BookTok books, wildly popular among readers using this platform at the time. As it is still the best of McQuiston’s books, it is unsurprising that filmmakers were eager to adapt it, as well as other amazing novels that Hollywood eyed early.
Source: LA Times, Deadline, PEOPLE, Publisher’s Weekly, EW, Variety, MovieWeb, The NewYork Times
