Why TV Joined The Book Club: Novel Ideas Remain Hot In A Cautious Market

Sally Rooney recently stunned the entertainment world when in a newspaper interview, she said her experience of adapting her much-loved coming-of-age novel Normal People for the BBC and Hulu left her feeling like TV was “not a world where I belonged.” Accordingly, the in-demand writer has since said no to offers to option her third book, 2021’s Beautiful World, Where Are You. The same will be likely for her latest, Intermezzo.

Rooney’s decision was especially surprising given the TV market has been so driven by book IP, with option prices rising sharply and demand bigger than ever. In fact, around a year ago, we hear drama commissioners put out a call to TV makers. The broad message was “IP over original ideas as often as possible.” While books have long been the engine of television and film, the notion everything must come with proof of concept has shifted the dial.

Tristan Orpen Lynch, co-founder of Irish indie Subotica, recalls the impact: “People started saying everything needs to be based on IP, and the industry reacted and started buying more and more. There will always be a place for pure, original ideas but there does seem to be a blind reliance on IP at the moment.”

Larry Robinson, founder of LA-based management and production company Avatar Entertainment, adds: “In the last year, it has really picked up. We have changed our focus to be much more aggressive in the books to screen space.” As such, Avatar has picked up options in Spain and the U.K. among other territories to package scripted projects for studios and other partners.

But why did the call come in the first place? Following the pandemic production lockdown, networks and streamers had been rushing to greenlight a wide variety of projects. Many original shows landed, while book adaptations such as Slow Horses and Nine Perfect Strangers were in vogue. However, Wall Street’s lockdown enthusiasm for streaming waned just as the TV advertising market crashed in 2022. Budgets — and appetite for risk — dropped across the board. Suddenly, it made sense to ditch the unknown for tangible ideas.

“Studios love to work with established IP because there is some kind of existing audience and awareness,” says Robinson. “There is a blueprint of what the whole show or movie will be about. It gives them a comfort level that an original story just doesn’t have.”

Hilary Strong, until recently CEO of International Literary Properties, put it another way during August’s Edinburgh TV Festival: “In a difficult market, having titles and authors does help to elevate a pitch. It gives commissioners something tangible. Taking raw work that’s had an extraordinary life before it goes in to a commissioner gives confidence to that pitch in this current market where people are nervous.”

That’s not happy reading for many screenwriters with ambitions for their own series, but what is the longer-term outlook for the drama market? Broadly, the eight sources from the filmed entertainment and literary worlds we’ve spoken to for this piece talk to a red-hot market for books-to-TV dealmaking, both in the U.S. and internationally, but some question how costs can continue rising amid wild demand and a recovering film market.

Felicity Blunt, literary agent at UTA-owned Curtis Brown, recalls how there was “a roar back to production after Covid,” which led to a spike in option deals and development. “What has continued to move at pace since then is the acquisition of underlying IP,” she adds. “There is always something concrete in it.”

Blunt is a first-time executive producer on Rivals, the Disney+ series adaptation of her client Jilly Cooper’s novel from 1988. Set in the fictional English county of Rutshire, it follows a rivalry between two powerful men that seeps into the running of a local television station. David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Katherine Parkinson, Lisa McGrillis, Alex Hassell, Danny Dyer and Emily Atack star in an ensemble cast, with Dominic Treadwell-Collins leading the production. “Jilly has a fanatical fanbase,” says Blunt. Even so, this is the first time Rivals has been adapted as a series.

The past few years have seen a slew of deals for everything from the biggest new bestsellers to older novels such as Rivals and Shögun. Companies from all over the world are investing in everything from newspaper articles to Korean webtoons, but a traditional chapter-based novel most closely mirrors a television series format, so that’s where most of the cash is going — albeit with the caveat that great stories can come from anywhere.

“People are still saying they want IP, but shows constantly break through that are original,” says Bruna Papandrea, co-founder of Australian production house Made Up Stories. The Australian-born producer has been at the heart of the books-to-TV system over the past decade, adapting bestsellers such as Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Nine Perfect Strangers and The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart into series for the likes of HBO and Prime Video. Around 80% of Made Up Stories’ slate is acquired book IP from the likes of long-time collaborator Liane Moriaty.

Optioning, however, can be an expensive habit, with Papandrea noting that the current market is seeing many “super competitive situations, mostly for TV,” even accounting for a slight shift back toward film. “I’ve paid $1,000 and $1 million and everywhere in between,” she adds. “The cost depends on where you’re going to make it.”

Blunt adds books returning to the open market can also lead to “frenetic auctions”.

Of course, the wider TV market is conservative and slow-moving right now, and that can have significant impact on its constituents. “Some things are taking longer at the moment, and it does put pressure on independent production companies,” says Papandrea. “I will not option something now unless I know it will be made because of the cost.”

One agent notes that “lots of things get optioned that never get made,” which can be devastating for the author and their relationship with the TV and film industry. “It is our job to get the book into the hands of an expert producer with access to talent,” says Blunt. “You try to set it up with the best mechanics so it can get made, whether that’s a big-name writer or A-list talent.” 

Any changes, such as re-setting the stories in different countries, are carefully assessed. Of course, this can work out. “Liane Moriarty’s books weren’t hurt by being transplanted into America,” says one agent admiringly.

It all comes back to the relationship with the author, says Michelle Weiner, Head of CAA’s book division. “There are examples where authors are open and excited by stories told with a movie star at the center or adapted by a certain writer, and for those reasons it could be set somewhere else,” she says. “Others are very happily told in their original setting.”

Raffaella De Angelis, who leads literary adaptations for Fremantle’s global drama division, says optioning novels “without considering the next steps first is a disservice to the author.” That’s a constant guiding principle for the likes of Blunt and Papandrea, who say the whole system relies on trust and respect for the author’s work.

The U.S. studios have faced this criticism, with some sources we’ve spoken to privately voicing frustration with the amount that gets gobbled up by Hollywood as soon as new books hit the market. Notably, Universal International Studios and its sister companies and NBCUniversal have appeared very active over the last year, unveiling numerous acquisitions for novels from the likes of Lucy Foley, whose The Midnight Feast was a hot property at the London Book Fair earlier this year.

“We all get to see the material at the same time, but it’s hard to compete with the U.S. studios,” says Hannah Griffiths, Head of Adaptations at Banijay Entertainment.

Coming to the defense of the U.S. majors during the Edinburgh TV Festival was Claire Lundberg, CEO and founder of Paris-based CTL Scouting, who told an audience: “American studios get dinged for buying a lot and not making a whole lot,” but she said that this didn’t always reflect the reality.

CAA’s Weiner says that whatever the shape of the deal, working with the writer is paramount. “Everyone is always looking for something different and new, and there are a lot of ways to work through that depending on the author’s desires,” she says. “That could mean pairing them with an experienced producer.”

Internationally, Weiner notes her team in London is finding more projects than ever, and equally has more ways to make them. This is thanks to the emergence of European financiers and funding bodies, plus streamers that “can uniquely market local language stories” and indie funders.

However, not everyone believes that the books-to-TV trend is on the up. Banijay’s Griffiths is among those who say it “peaked about three years ago,” as despite the comforting nature of an option, “a lot of people got burned by the cost of IP.” That said, she stills sees the value in book properties: “Why risk something when you can have an insurance policy?”

Griffiths predicts there will be more adaptation of iconic novels from the 1970s and 1980s, as seen in projects such as Rivals and Frederick Forsyth’s assassin story The Day of the Jackal, which has been adapted for Sky and Peacock starring Eddie Redmayne and will launch on November 7. Moreover, she says there is a wave of horror novels coming, though the male action genre that’s spawned the likes of Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan is sparse. Curtis Brown’s Blunt agrees horror is “really hot”, and adds that “grown up, smart and serious love stories” remain in demand, as does ‘romantasy’ — fantasy stories with a central romance at their core (think Twilight).

Whatever breaks through, it won’t be cheap. Fremantle’s De Angelis notes that costs for top writers’ new wares can be “huge” investments for production companies, which may influence how the future develops. “Anything Sally Rooney writes right now will be incredibly expensive,” she says, speaking to Deadline in the weeks before the Irish author revealed she had ruled herself out of the adaptations game.

Anyone determined to land Rooney’s critical darling Intermezzo or Beautiful World, Where Are You will need all their powers of persuasion and a very, very big check indeed to change her mind.