It’s easy to wonder sometimes if there are any new ideas in Hollywood, as so many movies and TV series are adapted from books, plays, comics, etc. But the best adaptations make the original content feel fresh and new, drawing audiences back to the source material. Continuing our tradition of books-to-screen posts, here are some of the latest options for this year’s Book Bingo book-to-screen category.
Several classics have been adapted (again) recently from Jane Austen’s Emma, to Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, to Shakespeare’s Macbeth (in a film directed by none other than Joel Cohen). In July, Austen’s Persuasion receives a similar treatment as Autumn de Wilde’s 2020 film Emma, a fresh, cheeky, pastel-infused take on one of Austen’s most problematic heroines starring Anya Taylor-Joy. The latest of many adaptations, Carrie Cracknell’s Persuasion premieres on Netflix on July 15th, and features Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, and Henry Golding in yet another rich, dashing romantic lead. Also worth watching/reading in the classics/historical category is Gentleman Jack, an HBO series adapted from the memoir The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister, or ParkChan-Wook’s 2016 film The Handmaiden, adapted from Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel Fingersmith.
Paul Gallico’s charming 1957 novel Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, about a London charwoman who falls in love with a client’s Dior dress and decides she simply must have one of her own, is getting a big-screen movie release Continue reading “Recent and upcoming Book-to-Screen Adaptations”