After a holiday period it can feel like you’ve watched every worthwhile TV series and movie out there. Scrolling through streaming services for a new ‘must-watch’ to get swept up in can become a frustrating pastime.
You might have also spent time lounging around with a good book, be it a classic or a newer read everyone has been talking about.
With this in mind, it might be time to look forward and get excited about what’s to come.
If you have a favourite read, it can be confronting to see it adapted for the screen in ways you hadn’t imagined while devouring its words on a page. But equally, many movies and series adapted from books can introduce you to captivating original novels you hadn’t come across before.
With the writer’s and screen actor’s strikes of 2023 a distant memory, this year looks to be a bumper year for new content, particularly those that were a book first. Often with a built-in fanbase of readers, it can be a safe bet for producers and studios looking for a guaranteed hit.
Here’s what to expect in coming months:
Boy Swallows Universe
Already out and picking up attention as a heart-rending and exhilarating watch, this Netflix Series is based on a book by Aussie writer Trent Dalton. Both follow Eli Bell, a working-class youth who enters Brisbane’s underworld to save his mother from danger, and touches on elements of Dalton’s own life experiences. It has an exceptional cast of Australian actors including Phoebe Tonkin, Sophie Wilde, Travis Fimmel, Simon Baker and lead Felix Cameron.
Expats
A new series starring Nicole Kidman, based on a 2016 novel by Janice Y.K. Lee, who also wrote The Piano Teacher. The story revolves around the lives of three women who have moved from the United States to Hong Kong. Their lives have become intertwined due to several traumatic events and the series delves into the complexities of trauma, relationships and motherhood while living an otherwise privileged existence in a new city. The series is out January 26 on Amazon Prime Video.
Tracker
Jeffery Deaver’s 2019 novel The Never Game gets a drama series adaptation this year in Tracker. Justin Hartley stars as as lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw, who travels the USA as a “reward seeker,” using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve crimes and locate missing persons while contending with his own fractured family. Tracker is set to premiere on February 11, 2024.
Shōgun
Shōgun is a 1975 historical fiction novel by James Clavell, set during the late Sengoku period in Japan. The new FX mini-series follows John Blackthorne, an English navigator shipwrecked in Japan who rises from outsider to samurai, while being used as a pawn in Japanese leader Toranaga’s struggle to reach the top of the ruling chain, or Shogun. The series will be released on February 27.
Spaceman
Proving outer-space is still a setting ripe for unique movies, this film based on the 2017 book Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. Adam Sandler stars as an astronaut sent on a mission to the edge of the solar system who encounters a creature, a spider-like alien known as Hanuš, that helps him address his earthly problems – including a faltering marriage. The Netflix film is out March 1.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Henry Cavill stars in this Guy Ritchie-directed action film based on the book Churchill’s Secret Warriors” By Damien Lewis. Inspired by true events, it follows a top-secret combat unit of fighters recruited by the British military in World War II that employ unconventional tactics to take on the Nazis. The film will be released on April 19.
Bridgerton
There’s a new Bridgerton on the way! The regency-era series is adapted from a set of novels by author Julia Quinn based on the romances of each of the eight siblings of the Bridgerton family. The new series will jump ahead in the timeline of books, to focus on the wallflower (and secret scandal sheet writer) Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and her longtime crush, world traveler Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton). Split into two batches, part one is set to be released on May 16, and part two will arrive the following month on June 13.
It Ends With Us
Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel It Ends With Us is coming to the big screen with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni as its main characters. It Ends With Us is the story of a young woman named Lily who who falls for a brilliant neurosurgeon named Ryle. As the relationship progresses she is forced to confront family trauma from the past and make crucial decisions on her future and the way she deserves to be treated. The Sony Pictures film is due to be released June 24.
The Amateur
A spy thriller starring Rami Malek and directed by James Hawes, the film is based on a book of the same name by Robert Littell originally published in 1981. It follows a CIA cryptographer who manages to blackmail his agency into training him to let him go after a group of terrorist who killed his wife in London. It will be released on November 8.
The Sympathizer
Based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, The Sympathizer is an espionage thriller and cross-culture satire about the struggles of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War and his resulting exile in the United States. The series, developed by HBO and does not yet have an exact release date but it is said to be within 2024.
