5 Novels We Wish Would Become TV Shows
Big-screen book-to-movie adaptations only have about two hours to bring every plot detail and quote from a beloved book series to life, and while sometimes that works out really, really well, there are certain complex stories that just need more time—the kind of time quality television adaptations could give them. From True Blood to Pretty Little Liars, we’ve seen how well a good book (or book series) can translate to our sets. Here are five other novels we think should become TV series:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
20th Century Fox currently owns the film rights to the YA series, with Tim Burton reportedly slated to direct the tale of strangely gifted children hiding from hideous monsters in a time loop in 1940s Wales. Sure, Burton is good at lovably creepy material, but we could see this as an American Horror Story–style limited series, which wouldn’t reduce contemporary protagonist Jacob and his new friends to time-pressed sketches.
The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer
The story follows friends from their meeting in a 1970s summer camp to their present adult lives, which haven’t all lived up to their artistic ideals. It’s a neatly wrapped-up story that could do fine as a movie, but if the right TV minds got hold of these characters, we see potential for expanding the compelling, grownup drama (with a touch of humor, a la Parenthood), spiced up with colorful flashbacks to the 1970s and ’80s.
The Curseworkers series (White Cat, Red Glove, Black Heart), by Holly Black
A subset of humans with special powers to alter memories, influence dreams, make people fall in love, or even transform them into other animals or objects. A crime syndicate that makes great use of those talents. And a teenage boy who thinks he killed the love of his life, who just happens to be the daughter of that syndicate’s leader. Back in 2011, Black announced that Vertigo Pictures had the movie rights to this trilogy, but with its boarding-school setting and rich cast of devious characters, it could be a hit on either HBO or the CW.
All Souls Trilogy (A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, The Book of Life), by Deborah Harkness
Have we had enough of vampires and witches? Enough of European period dramas? In movies, perhaps the appetite for the supernatural is waning, but TV is a more forgiving medium. What starts out as a courtship-in-academia story about a literature postdoc (and witch) at Oxford and a prickly science professor (and vampire) turns into a time-traveling, magical adventure that’s far too twisty to fit into a couple of hours. If Fox made an unconventional hit out of Sleepy Hollow, we think a network could mine Harkness’ books for its next (oc)cult series. They just need Warner Bros. to hand over the movie rights.
Eleanor & Park, By Rainbow Rowell
The YA world has fallen madly and deeply in love with Rainbow Rowell’s work over the past year. While we hold our breath to see if Hollywood does right by John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, we don’t know how it would treat the 1986-set fragile, beautiful romance of New Wave– and comic book–loving, half-Korean kid Park and the defiantly misfit redhead Eleanor, who lives in constant fear of her abusive stepfather. But what if it were something like My So-Called Life or Awkward? Imagine. The. Soundtrack.
What book would you like to see turned into a TV series?