Good afternoon: In this edition of the IP Scout, we will cover:
Hot Properties: spotlights the week’s authors whose work is being adapted by major studios/production companies, and who have other novels with strong screen potential.
Bestsellers: the top authors from the top bestseller lists whose work is ripe for Film/TV.
Booker Prize Longlist: looking at this year’s longlist for the Booker Prize, and finding interesting novels in the author’s back catalog.
Games: in the wake of the announcement of Amazon’s live-action and animated series adaptations of the Warhammer 40,000 series, based on the tabletop game of the same name, we have picked a game perfect for adaptation.
Hidden Gem: a spotlight on an unknown book that could make for a phenomenal film.
HOT PROPERTIES
Book 1: Mikita Brottman’s An Unexplained Death
Keywords: Series - true crime, mystery, historical exploration
Synopsis:
“The poster is new. I notice it right away, taped to a utility pole. Beneath the word ‘Missing,’ are two sepia-toned photographs of a man dressed in a bow tie and tux.”
Mikita Brottman spent ten years sifting through the details of the missing man’s life and disappearance, and his purported suicide by jumping from the roof of her own apartment building, the Belvedere.
As she delves into the murky circumstances surrounding Rey Rivera’s death, she contemplates the nature of suicide and uncovers a haunting pattern of guests at the Belvedere when it was still a hotel.
Our analysis:
By making a true crime series of this non-fiction book, with the Belvedere Hotel/Apartment Building at its center, something new is created. Rather than a series focused solely on the crime or victims, the building calls to mind other tales of cursed hotels - The Shining, FX’s AHS: Hotel - and brings them into reality.
Featuring Brottman as a character in the series would give true crime audiences a surrogate to relate to - a person who shares their spiraling fascination with morbidity. A compelling casting choice for Brottman would be Britt Lower, whose role in Severance sees her bravely delving into an unending mystery - the same could be said for this story. Strangely, she played the wife of a true crime author in the recent feature Psycho Therapy (2024).
Why it’s hot: This is a unique location-based true-crime horror. And the genre is playing really well right now, with HBO’s recent The Yogurt Shop Murders getting Emmy nominations. Also, Apple TV is adapting this author’s book Guilty Creatures, with Julia Garner (Weapons, Ozark) starring and EPing.
Book 2: Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s Animalia
Keywords: Film - arthouse, historical drama, rural struggle
Synopsis:
Animalia retraces the history of a modest peasant family through the twentieth century as they develop their small plot of land into an intensive pig farm. In an environment dominated by the omnipresence of animals, five generations endure the cataclysm of war, economic disasters, and the emergence of a brutal industrialism reflecting an ancestral tendency to violence. Only the enchanted realm of childhood – that of Éléonore, the matriarch, and that of Jérôme, the last in the lineage – and the innate freedom of the animals offer any respite from the visible barbarity of humanity.
Our analysis:
A historical novel divided into two parts - the start of the 20th century and the 1980s. Though the novel dedicates a distinct half to each period, an arthouse-style film could take a more surreal direction, having the past haunting the present with flashbacks and apparitions. It has a sense of a fantasy-less Robert Eggers (Nosferatu, The Lighthouse) film, a bleak historical vision of rural life.
A good director for this project would be Bertrand Bonello (House of Tolerance, Nocturama), who has shown his ability to create a stylized film spanning different time periods with The Beast, and as someone who has worked within the New French Extremity movement, would be well versed in creating the visceral and explicit sequences from the novel that give it so much grit.
On this trajectory, it would make a great acquisition for MUBI, which previously released Bonello’s Coma as well as Athina Rachel Tsangari’s thematically similar Harvest (2024) starring Caleb Landry Jones.
Why it’s hot: Animalia, a Southern France-set horror, has notes of Robert Eggers’ work and other popular MUBI films. Plus, the author’s other novel, La Nuit ravagée, is being adapted by Jacques Audiard (dir: Emilia Pérez) alongside Netflix.
Book 3: Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51
Keywords: Series - documentary, secret history, hidden institution
Synopsis:
It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn’t exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada’s desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government - but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.
Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base for decades and were aged 75-92 at the time of publication, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets, to pursuing the War on Terror.
Our analysis:
Area 51 captures the public’s imagination like nothing else - a myth that unites generations due to its constant prevalence in popular culture. Plus Spielberg’s Disclosure Day has reignited mainstream interest in the subject.
That means an exclusive deep dive into the facility’s secrets would attract a wide-ranging audience.
We see this leaning away from the current docu-series formats that so often tilt towards true crime or lifestyle like Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring. Instead, this would make a great limited series. To let the narrative do the talking, this would be best filmed in a talking-heads style (with stand-ins, as it’s doubtful to get the quoted individuals due to their age and the subject matter) with archival footage cut as B-roll.
If you’ve had a watch of Netflix’s American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, there’s something about the heavily researched, fast-paced format that could lend a lot of credibility to this. With projects like this, there’s a growing market for large-scale explorations of enigmatic institutions and worldwide disaster scenarios.
There is also potential to explore other Jacobsen works in later seasons, such as Phenomena (detailing the US Government’s exploration into psychokinesis) and Operation Paperclip (a secret intelligence program centered around Nazi scientists).
Why it’s hot: With Spielberg’s Disclosure Day reigniting mainstream interest in aliens, a doc that captures the enigmatic Area 51 will prove enticing. Jacobsen’s work is also having a moment, with her nonfiction book Biological War: A Scenario currently being adapted by Universal Global Television into a series and her other book Nuclear War: A Scenario, currently optioned by Legendary Entertainment with Denis Villeneuve attached to produce and direct.
BESTSELLERS
Book 4: Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York
Keywords: Film: anthology, slice-of-life, city is the main character
Synopsis:
A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city’s inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories.
Whitehead’s style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person to first person to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting.
Our analysis:
This work would be perfect as an anthology film paying homage to New York. This can take two creative directions - the first is having one director take charge of the project, weaving the stories together into a larger picture, as with Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch.
Alternatively, multiple directors could create their own shorts to fit into the project, much like Paris, je t’aime (whose directors include Alexander Payne and Gus Van Sant) or Tokyo! (with directors including Bong Joon-ho, Michel Gondry and Leos Carax).
A New York anthology film series could see directors whose work is influenced by the city, such as Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Gangs of New York), Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories, Frances Ha), and Kemp Powers (Soul, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse).
Why it’s hot: In the age of short-form video content, anthology films are primed to have a resurgence. This one would capture the soul of New York from an author who knows it well. Whitehead’s other novel, Cool Machine, is a bestseller. His Harlem book series has just been optioned for Apple TV - and he’s also the author of Nickel Boys, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film.
Book 5: Clare Mackintosh’s Hostage
Keywords: Film: thriller, psychological, one-location
Synopsis:
The atmosphere on board the inaugural non-stop flight from London to Sydney is electric. Numerous celebrities are rumored to be among the passengers in business class, and journalists will be waiting on the ground to greet the plane.
Mina is one of the flight attendants chosen for the landmark journey. She’s trying to focus on the task in hand, and not worry about her troubled five-year-old daughter back at home with her husband.
But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina’s assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.
Our analysis:
Adapting this novel would show you don’t need a high budget to make an exciting thriller - the whole production could be shot inside the plane, using a studio set and potentially a few wires to show some high-stakes “plummeting” sequences.
Some of the most engaging and tense films use one location - From 12 Angry Men to Phone Booth to Snowpiercer. Airport/aeroplane media is having an elongated post-COVID moment, with Netflix’s Carry-On and Blood Red Sky, Apple TV’s Hijack, and the upcoming Ruben Östlund feature, The Entertainment System Is Down (do you smell a 3rd Palme d’Or?).
The perfect actor to take on the role of Mina would be Mia McKenna-Bruce, whose character’s sweet-natured naivete is shattered during a life-changing holiday in How to Have Sex - her character would go on a similar journey here as she is forced to reckon with a danger she has never before faced in her job.
Why it’s hot: A hostage thriller at 30,000 ft with shades of the best high-intensity single-location films like 12 Angry Men and Snowpiercer. The author’s other novel, It’s Not What You Think, is a current bestseller, and has been optioned by Red Planet Pictures (Death in Paradise) with Kam Odedra set to adapt for TV.
BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST
Book 6: Missouri Williams’s The Doloriad
Keywords: Film - post-apocalyptic, survival, surreal
Synopsis:
In the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the Matriarch, her brother, and the family descended from their incest cling to existence on the edges of a deserted city. The Matriarch, ruling with fear and force, dreams of starting humanity over again. Together, the family scavenges supplies and attempts to cultivate the poisoned earth. For entertainment, they watch old VHS tapes of a TV show.
But one day the Matriarch dreams of another group of survivors and sends away one of her daughters, the legless Dolores, as a marriage offering. When Dolores returns the next day, her reappearance triggers the breakdown of the Matriarch’s fragile order, and the control she wields over their sprawling family begins to weaken.
Our analysis:
This project is similar in theme to 28 Years Later and its sequel, showing the worst and most depraved traits of humanity being amplified after society as we know it has fallen. Though “small scale” and “post-apocalyptic” don’t usually go hand in hand, I think this would do best as an intimate, artistic film shot in a derelict location.
A director whose style would work well with this story would be Luna Carmoon (Hoard). Her work is poetic, quasi-surreal, and unafraid to delve into the darkness.
Why it’s hot: The Doloriad promises to be a surreal and unique take on the post-apocalyptic film. Williams’s other novel is Booker-longlisted The Vivisectors, a highly original novel with tones of dark academia.
Book 7: Luke Kennard’s The Answer to Everything
Keywords: Film - tragi-comedy, suburbia, longing
Synopsis:
Emily should be happy. She has a nice husband, Steven (even if they rarely speak to each other, let alone sleep in the same bed), two little boys she loves (even if a full night’s sleep is a distant memory) – and now, a brand-new house in which they can live out all of the bourgeois fantasies she knows she should be ashamed of. But still she aches for something more.
Enter Alathea and Elliott, their new neighbors. Alathea is intimidatingly confident and beautiful, but also disarmingly open and friendly. And Elliott … is intriguing. Disheveled, talented, and a little lost, he seems as fascinated by Emily as she is by him, and soon their friendship has reached an intensity neither of them seems able to control.
Our analysis:
This film would make the perfect indie tragic-comedy, with similar DNA to Olivia Wilde’s The Invite in the theme of suburban couples stuck in the monotonous life of the bourgeoisie, looking for an escape.
I can see this as a suitable Brett Goldstein (co-creator of Shrinking) project and, if keeping with the book’s UK setting, could make a brilliant cast with Goldstein himself playing Elliott and the lead role of Emily being undertaken by Emilia Clarke, her wonderful bubbly persona being tamped down by the monotony of life until she is forced to act.
Why it’s hot: With similar DNA to Olivia Wilde’s The Invite, which was the top sale at Sundance this year, this is a tragic-comedy exploring the pains of suburbia. The author is Booker-longlisted for his novel The Black Bag, a hilarious campus comedy.
Book 8: Gwendoline Riley’s Cold Water
Keywords: Series - drama, slice-of-life, character-driven
Synopsis:
Carmel McKisco is wry, volatile, and full of a twenty-year-old girl working nights in a Manchester dive bar. Cut off from her family, and from Tony, her carefree ex, she forges strange alliances with her customers, and daydreams, half-heartedly, about escaping to Cornwall. Cold Water is a poignant picaresque of barmaids and barflies; eccentric individuals all somehow tethered to their past - not least Carmel herself, who is nurturing mordant fixations on her lost love, Tony. As she spins out the days and nights of an unrelentingly rainy winter, she finds herself compelled to confront her romantic preoccupations, for better or worse.
Our analysis:
This slice-of-life drama is reminiscent of Amélie, with its young waitress connecting to the lives of her customers and getting lost in fantasies. However, an adaptation of this work would be less fantastical and more modern-gothic, with its aging pub and omnipresent barflies - a similar tone to Netflix’s Oscar-winning short film The Singers.
A series with shorter episodes (25 minutes) that explores different characters and situations in Carmel’s working day could attract a generation of young people - drawn in by the day-in-the-life style so omnipresent in online content, and then hooked by the dreamy yearning that characterizes one’s 20s.
Why it’s hot: Like Amélie but set in a bar. A slice-of-life tale of barflies and barmaids from Riley, whose Booker-longlisted novel is the keenly observed drama, The Palm House.
GAMES
Property 9: Vampire: The Masquerade - Created by White Wolf Publishing
Keywords: Series - fantasy, vampire, modern-gothic
Synopsis:
This tabletop RPG game uses the vampiric condition as a backdrop to explore themes of morality, the human condition, salvation, and personal horror. The setting is a gloomy and exaggerated version of the real world in which vampires and other monsters exist, called the World of Darkness.
Our analysis:
There is so much content in the Vampire: The Masquerade realm (not to mention its many spin-offs such as Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension) that a series could go on indefinitely. Indeed, it could be the next big vampire series, following in the footsteps of True Blood and The Vampire Diaries - but with a style that honors the game’s heritage. This style would focus heavily on the gothic clubbing aesthetics of the ‘90s and ‘00s, complete with black PVC and manic panic-dyed hair. Think less brooding Twilight teens and more this (clip) clubbing scene from Blade.
Woven into this would be plenty of existential angst, taking its cue from modern vampire classics such as Only Lovers Left Alive and Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person.
HIDDEN GEM
Book 10: Harriet Young’s The Hellion
Keywords: Film - indie, folk horror, medieval witch trials
Synopsis:
Whalley, 1537: On a day like any other, a devastating fire changes the lives of two young girls.
What happens next triggers a series of events leading inexplicably to the cells of Lancaster Gaol.
Lancashire, 1612: The most notorious witchcraft trials in England are taking place.
Among the accused, three generations of the same family. A family rooted in Pendle, tied to the infamous Malkin Towers and always followed by a whisper of evil. A family destroyed by the evidence given by a nine-year-old girl…
Our analysis:
Folk horror is generally friendly on a budget, and this project would make the perfect indie movie for a burgeoning horror director, taking its cues from Robert Eggers’s The Witch. It also shares similar themes to Amazon’s Is God Is. Using the Lancashire countryside as a shooting location would give a great sense of place to this story steeped in folklore - a production that could be partly backed by the BBC, BFI, or Film4.
The main strain on budget here would be the cast, as the story spans three generations; however, if the same actors play multiple roles, representing a family member from each generation, then it can make for a creative - and cost-friendly - choice.
See you next week!
Written by Molly Wise.
For consulting and/or advertising opportunities email clarke.scott@theindustry.co