5 YA Books-Turned-Movies You Need To Know About
Bookworms historically have mixed feelings about seeing their favorite stories hit the big screen. What can we say? We’ve been burned before (don’t even get me started on the Ella Enchanted movie if you have plans in the next two hours). But amid the barrage of disappointments there have been some gems: The Fault in Our Stars, The Princess Diaries and every Harry Potter movie but Prisoner of Azkaban, to name a few. We’re entering an era where young adult literature is finally being taken super seriously at the box office (and here at Brit + Co we’ve always taken it seriously) so here are some flicks to get excited about starting with some pretty exciting news.
1. Looking For Alaska by John Green: John Green books make perfect teen movies. The characters are quirky, the adventures are epic, and everyone talks like a 30-year-old literature professor with an attitude. The man is basically this generation’s John Hughes. We bawled through The Fault in Our Stars earlier this year and just next month we’ll do it all over again with his movie Paper Towns about a group of friends going on one last adventure before graduating. Green’s next film adaptation has been confirmed and Becca Thomas is set to direct the movie of his first novel Looking For Alaska. Green’s freshman novel has been famously banned from several schools because of the frank way it deals with teenage sex and suicide. This movie is going to be a tear jerker but with the right cast (which judging by Green movie precedent will feature Nat Wolff aka the Johnny Depp to Green’s Tim Burton) it could also be a lot of fun.
2. Eleanor & Parkby Rainbow Rowell: Even though I’m majorly bummed there’s been no talks to adapt Rowell’s book Fangirl (I’ll also accept this as a web series) Eleanor & Park is a love story I’d like to see on the big screen. The story centers on the love of a biracial teenage couple in Omaha in the ’80s. The story is told via switching perspectives and their shared love of music. The project’s been picked up by Dreamworks and Rowell has already shared some thoughts on the casting. She says she’d prefer unknown actors and has tweeted that her worst movie nightmare would be for “a skinny girl to get cast as Eleanor and Keanu Reeves gets cast as Park.” Since Park is Korean American that would be a terrible casting choice but then again I never put it past Hollywood to whitewash a character of color. Pray for us.
3. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: Full disclosure, this book is seriously scary. Riggs tells the story of an island haunted by tragedy and filled with portals to other dimensions. If that wasn’t scary enough, he incorporates real black and white found photos into the book and all of them are creepy. The king of creepy, Tim Burton is set to direct this movie slated to come out in 2016.
4. Mockingjay Part 2 by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games series has been particularly well adapted. The casting is on point and the action and drama play out just as well as it did in the books. Part one was already an emotional roller coaster and part two should be a series culminating doozy. The action, oppressed group using media to protest is kind of especially relevant in light of certain news stories so the film will take on another layer of meaning. Look for this in November.
5.Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame Smith: This is the book that started the trend of “classic literature + one weirdo element = awesome” that lead to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, The Meowtamorphisis and My Favorite Fangs (which , I shit you not, is a version of Soundof Music with vampires and zombies). This quirky movie will star Lily James and Game of Thrones’ Lena Heady and will come out in February of 2016.
What childhood favorite do you wish would hit the big screen? Tell us in the comments!
