Pop culture news for readers: October 2, 2026

Here's how pop culture and literature have been intersecting lately ... 

MOVIES

• Casey Sherman is writing a book about the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas; the work, titled Vegas Strong, will also become a movie (Deadline).

• Check out the trailer for the movie Clarissa, loosely based on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway but taking place in Lagos, Nigeria (Deadline).

• Nicholas Boggs will co-write the script for a feature film adaptation of his biography of author James Baldwin; Baldwin: A Love Story, the movie, will be co-written by novelist Marlon James (The Hollywood Reporter).

• R.L. Stine‘s Afraid of Clowns, an original movie from the Goosebumps author, will come to Tubi next year (Variety).

• Here's the second trailer for the Charles Dickens-inspired movie Ebenezer, which stars Johnny Depp as Scrooge (Variety).

• Carrying, the not-quite-yet-released debut novel by Samantha Josephs, will be adapted into a movie (Variety).

TV SHOWS

• Neagley, a TV show that spun off a character from the TV show Reacher, will receive a second season; Reacher is, of course, based on the Lee Child novels (The Hollywood Reporter).

• Katharine McGee’s YA series American Royals has been acquired for development into a TV series by Netflix (Deadline).

• Hulu is developing Thornbird by Elle Kennedy — of Off Campus fame — into a TV series (Deadline).

OTHER NEWS

• Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman, who starred in the movie adaptation of the novel The Love Hypothesis, have narrated a three-episode audio romance for the erotic app Quinn; titled Olympus U, it's a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth written by Kate Goldbeck (The Hollywood Reporter).

• The producers of the Heated Rivalry TV show — based on Rachel Reid's hockey romance novels — have launched a real version of the Irina Foundation, which is the nonprofit created by book and show main characters Shane and Ilya (Deadline).

• Talk show host — and celebrity book club founder — Jenna Bush Hager shared her recommended reading for influencer Alix Earle, who recently said she has possibly never read a book (People).