BETWEEN THE LINES

Sorting-Hat Shock Pottermore launched the Wizarding

World Book Club. Its first read? Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. • Seaworthy Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea won the Carnegie Medal for best children’s writing. Books THE NIX SHARP OBJECTS 1 Nathan Hill 6 Gillian Flynn EDITED BY TINA JORDAN @EWTinaJordan NETWORK TBD | AIRDATE TBD HBO | 2018

Hill wasn’t just excited to learn Showrunner Marti Noxon had to that Hollywood heavyweights convince production company J.J. Abrams (Lost)andMeryl Streep eOne that Sharp Objects needed wanted to adapt his debut to be on TV, not film: “I made novel—about the relationship a very forceful case for why films between a videogame-obsessed with protagonists that are professor and his mother—he this dark and complex aren’t was relieved. “I worked on this ALIAS GRACE Margaret Atwood a proven entity—but gritty, con- thing for 10 years,” he says. NETFLIX | FALL 2017 flicted, messed-up women on TV “When I found out Meryl and J.J. is almost a genre now,” she says. wanted it, I knew they would Flynn (Gone Girl) and Noxon Can Atwood strike gold twice? Netflix do such a great job.” To Hill, the co-wrote the limited series, with book’s complexity makes it better hopes so! Writer/EP Sarah Polley (Stories Jean-Marc Vallée (Big Little Lies) suited to TV than film: “I think 3 We Tell) has adapted Atwood’s novel, directing, and Amy Adams, Chris we could do The Nix in two hours, about a 19th-century servant accused of Messina, and Patricia Clarkson but you’d have to cut it so much murdering her employers, into a limited series. It’s a long starring. Noxon is quick to admit that the story would effectively time coming for Polley, who initially tried to nab the rights that if the first season succeeds, no longer be The Nix, really.” when she was 19. “It was the first thing I ever wanted to she and Flynn are already pre- A limited series will allow the make,” she says. Mary Harron (American Psycho) will direct, pared for two more. “We have an creative team to lean in to what and most of the creative team is female. “There’s a certain idea that could stand alone, not makes the book so special. “The necessarily with [Adams’ charac- sensibility and relationship to female characters that’s prob- chapters are rendered in different ter],” she says. “It’s like a free emotional registers,” Hill explains. ably easier to access for a female filmmaker,” says Polley. Gillian Flynn book! You’d get the “There’s comedy and absurdity sequel to Sharp Objects just for and melancholy and nostalgia.... doing a second season.” All three of us, J.J. and [show- runner] John Logan and myself, agreed that an adaptation needed to be similarly daring and adven- turous. We wanted to take the same risks the book takes.” Hill may take a risk of his own: “I might try writing one episode.”

DIETLAND THE MINIATURIST 4 Sarai Walker 5 Jessie Burton THE CUCKOO’S CALLING AMC | AIRDATE TBD PBS | AIRDATE TBD 7 Robert Galbraith : SABRINA: LANTOS/NETFLIX; ADAMS: JON KOPALOFF/FILMMAGIC; COSTANZO: When the entertainment industry ”Often, period dramas get HBO | AIRDATE TBD caught wind of Walker’s 2015 bleached out and prettified too novel, their response surprised much,” says Burton, author of the BBC One is adapting J.K. Rowling’s her. “People in Hollywood took 17th-century Holland-set novel

ALIAS IN GRACE IN ALIAS Cormoran Strike novels (which Dietland seriously—much more The Miniaturist, which she calls she publishes under the nom TV ADAPTATIONS MY BRILLIANT FRIEND than people in the literary world “subversive and dark.” Fortunately de plume Robert Galbraith), with 2 Elena Ferrante did,” she says. Ultimately the EP Kate Sinclair and writer John each book getting its own mini- novel—which follows a 300- Brownlow got the moodiness. series under the Strike Series HBO | AIRDATE TBD pound woman named Plum who “They understood that these peo- umbrella. First up is The Cuckoo’s gets involved with a guerrilla fem- ple were living in a pressure Calling, in three one-hour epi- The first of pseudonymous inist group—landed with UnREAL cooker,” Burton says. “It has a lot of sodes, followed by The Silkworm author Ferrante’s four Neapolitan EP Marti Noxon and is in develop- parallels to the present day.” The and Career of Evil, with two one- “GET ME ANOTHER novels is in development as ment at AMC. “It’s such a radical cast, too, are veterans of murky, hour episodes each. Rowling, an a limited series from HBO and story; there’s really never been historical dramas: Anya Taylor-Joy EP on the series, has high hopes Italy’s RAI, directed by Saverio one like this on television,” Walker (The Witch) plays 18-year-old Nella, that fans will enjoy the adapta- Costanzo (Hungry Hearts), with says. For Noxon, current events with Romola Garai (Atonement) tion, which will air in the U.S. Jennifer Schuur (Big Love) as have made it more prescient: as her sister-in-law. The mini- on HBO. “I think/hope you’ll love HANDMAID’S TALE!” EP. Thus far, the book’s authen- “The idea of this long-overdue series, which PBS co-produced it,” she tweeted on May 28. “I’ve In the wake of Hulu’s success bringing Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic to the small screen, Hollywood ticity is intact: Casting started revolution brewing has started to with BBC, wrapped in May, but no seen all but one episode, and

is jumping on the adaptation bandwagon. Here are the 12 to watch for. BY ISABELLA BIEDENHARN STREEP: DAVID CROTTY/PATRICK MCMULLAN VIA GETTY IMAGES; ERNESTO RUSCIO/GETTY IMAGES; NOXON: JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC; DAVE HOGAN/GETTY J TAYLOR-JOY: IMAGES; ROWLING: MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE with Naples locals. feel more and more relevant.” airdate has been announced. I’m delighted!”

60 EW.COM JUNE 30, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE TOFANELLI JUNE 30, 2017 EW.COM 61 Books

THE TWELVE LIVES THE UNDERGROUND 8 OF SAMUEL HAWLEY 10 RAILROAD Hannah Tinti Colson Whitehead

NETWORK TBD | AIRDATE TBD AMAZON | AIRDATE TBD

It was easy for Tinti to imagine What’s next for The Underground her novel on TV: “[It’s] very epi- Railroad after a Pulitzer and a sodic. Each chapter has its own National Book Award? Moonlight’s story line of how this one guy was Barry Jenkins is directing it for shot and survived.” Bringing it to Amazon with Brad Pitt’s Plan B life are playwright Jez Butterworth (12 Years a Slave). and producers Matt Reeves (Felicity) and Michael Costigan.

YOU 11 Caroline Kepnes

SWING TIME LIFETIME | AIRDATE TBD 9 Zadie Smith Kepnes’ thriller about a bookstore NETWORK TBD | AIRDATE TBD clerk-turned-stalker is in the hands of überproducer Greg Berlanti Steve Coogan’s production com- (Arrow, Riverdale). “It’s like Sex and pany has nabbed Zadie Smith’s the City,” Kepnes jokes, “but his latest, which she’ll adapt way of looking for love is very dif- alongside husband Nick Laird. ferent from [Carrie’s].”

TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT Maria Semple

HBO | AIRDATE TBD

When Semple, a former Arrested Development writer, decided to adapt her second novel herself, she chose 12 the medium she knows best: “Movies belong to the director. TV belongs to the writer. It seemed like the natural choice.” (Richard Linklater is adapt- ing her first book, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, into a film.) The series will follow Eleanor Flood (producer and star Julia Roberts) through a single disastrous day. “I’ve got a scarily talented writing staff,” Semple says. “It’s been pure, drunken pleasure to be back in the room with other comedy writers after eight dry years.”

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