Literary adaptations: October 28, 2026

Here's a roundup of news and reflections on literary adaptations and crossovers.

Movies

• Disney Live Action has acquired film rights to the YA fantasy romance Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross (Deadline). 

• If you'd like a behind-the-scenes look at the latest Lucasfilm movie, The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu — a hardcover book containing concept art, early sketches, and cast interviews — comes out November 3 (Variety).

• A lawsuit has been filed over the film rights for Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's memoir Man’s Search for Meaning (The Hollywood Reporter).

• Actor Bill Hader discusses what it's like to play the Cat in the Hat for a second time, but this time in a full-length animated movie, rather than a live-action TV sketch ... and doing it for kids, not adults (The Hollywood Reporter).

TV 

• Actress Mia McKenna-Bruce has publicly joined the cast of Throttled, the TV series based on the first book in Lauren Asher's Dirty Air series (Deadline). 

• The series adaptation of America’s Trial: Torture and the 9/11 Case by John Ryan — called Camp Justice for TV — now has a screenwriter (Deadline). 

• The Walsh Sisters, based on a series by Marian Keyes, is not only continuing production on a second season, but also coming to global markets including the US (Deadline).

• Daphne du Maurier’s novella The Birds is coming to the screen again, this time in a limited series for HBO (Variety).

• The roles of Harry Potter's parents in HBO's new series based on the J.K. Rowling books have been cast: Jasper Talbot and Hannah Chinn as James and Lily, respective (The Hollywood Reporter).

Stage 

• Tom Hanks will, unsurprisingly, star in the Broadway show This World of Tomorrow, which is based on short stories he wrote (The New York Times). 

• The musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is playing Off Broadway through December (The New York Times).