Watch The Book, Read The Series
- Laura Malin
- Dec 18, 2023
- 2 min read
One of the most successful business models for film and TV adaptations is the book club pipeline. If a book makes some kind of noise among the readers and if it belongs to a famous club, the chances that it will work out as an adaptation immediately rise.
Sunshine
That is exactly how Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine became a billion-dollar company when it was sold, last September, to Candle Media (read more on THR)
Hello Sunshine only needed five years to go from zero to eight figures. Meanwhile, Reese's book club picks left a mark by delivering successful films and TV series, including Little Fires Everywhere, Where the Crawdads Sing, and Daisy Jones and the Six.
Oprah
Reese learned from the best: Oprah's Book Club 2.0 first screen adaptation was the feature film Wild, based on the book by Cheryl Strayed, with Witherspoon as the main character. Before that, Oprah had a traditional book club as a segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show that lasted 15 years before becoming its OWN thing (pun intended).
Oprah's new book adaptation endeavor (not from her book club, but from her past as a reader and as an actress), The Color Purple is behind the love that brought her to start her book club in the first place. Interesting how things go around. Read more on People.
Netflix
Yes, even Netflix launched a book club called Netflix Book Club with Uzo Aduba, back in 2021 (more on THR article). They basically discussed books that had already been adapted to the screen with a catchy angle: "but have you read the book"?
The streamer also has a page where you can browse adapted TV series and films and maybe... get book suggestions.
2024
While many books can be visualized as we read them, very few have traction and readers' base to become adapted for the screens. Still, as you can see in this Vanity Fair article, the few that break through make a big noise.
So far, 2024 is starting strong for adaptations – here is a Variety list.
Happy reading & binge-watching season. Thanks for sticking with us throughout this year, and may 2024 be a peaceful one!
Laura and Team
