Since the invention of motion pictures, Hollywood has been on the lookout for great stories, and — at least in theory — there’s no better place to look than the canon of great literature. From Jane Austen’s country house novels to Stephen King’s scary stories, these works are tested, timeless masterpieces. And they’d better be because most of them have been fodder for the screen before. These are the renowned novels being adapted (or re-adapted) for the big screen in 2022.
Persuasion Dives Into Jane Austen’s Final Novel
Jane Austen’s final novel, published about six months after her death in 1817, is surprisingly relatable to a modern-day audience. Persuasion is about Anne Elliot, an Englishwoman who is still living with her parents at 27. Years earlier, she broke off a brief but happy engagement to a man named Frederick Wentworth when her social circle convinced her that he was beneath her station. In the book’s present, fate and the changing times bring Anne and Frederick back into each other’s lives. While the Elliots’ position has declined, Frederick’s has risen, which is just one of many circumstances that complicate Anne and Frederick’s potentially rekindled romance.
Netflix‘s Persuasion is slated to premiere sometime in 2022. The adaptation stars Dakota Johnson, Henry Golding, Cosmo Jarvis, Suki Waterhouse and Richard E. Grant. Broadway director making the leap to film Carrie Cracknell has retained the period-correct setting but is said to be bringing a more modern sensibility to the humor. It’ll need to distinguish itself somehow. Between 1960 and 2020, Persuasion has been adapted into TV shows, films and plays a whopping 13 times. The Dakota Johnson version isn’t the only current-day attempt in production, either. Searchlight is also making one starring Succession‘s Sarah Snook, also set to release this year.
All Quiet on the Western Front Explores the Trauma of War
In this 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a young German man enthusiastically enlists to serve in World War I, only to become disillusioned when he discovers what war is really like, then depressed when he finds he can’t readjust to normal life. Paul Bäumer’s interior journey from blindly patriotic nationalist to defeated nihilist was one of the first works of fiction to accurately capture the trauma soldiers experience on the battlefield and deal with once they’re back home. All Quiet on the Western Front was banned by the Nazis for its challenging themes, which they deemed unpatriotic.
The book sold millions of copies in its day and was almost immediately turned into a movie. Universal Studios’ 1930 version won the Academy Award for Best Picture. A 1979 television movie followed. An update, starring Daniel Brühl (of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier fame) is expected to hit Netflix later this year.
Death on the Nile Delivers Another Agatha Christie Mystery
Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile is one of the 33 books that feature her most famous recurring protagonist, Hercule Poirot. This time, Poirot is on vacation in Egypt aboard a touring steamer when tragedy strikes. A contentious love triangle between a handsome man and two formerly friendly socialites results in one of their murders, and as is usually the case, everyone on board the ship is a suspect.
Death on the Nile was previously adapted into a 1978 film with a star-studded cast that included Maggie Smith, Mia Farrow, Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury. There’ve also been several stage productions of the iconic mystery, as well as a 1997 BBC miniseries. After 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh returns to direct and to the role of Poirot with 2022’s Death on the Nile, coming to theaters on February 11th. The film was scheduled to debut in 2020 but has been repeatedly delayed by the pandemic, as well as hamstrung by personal scandals involving stars Armie Hammer and Letitia Wright.
White Noise Stars Adam Drive in Don DeLillo’s Celebrated Novel
A lot is going on in Don DeLillo’s celebrated 1985 novel, even though it’s not particularly plot-driven. Told in three parts, the story takes the perspective of middle-aged and many-times married college professor Jack Gladney, who is an expert in “Hitler studies” and is coping with both the mundanity of family life and a crippling preoccupation with death. When a train crash results in a pandemic-like toxic event, he’s forced to face his deepest fears. White Noise is a prescient, darkly satirical look at what has turned out to be some of modernity’s fatal flaws: consumerism, obsession with the self, reliance on technology and the inability to distinguish the genuine from the projected.
Long thought to be one of the unfilmable literary masterpieces, White Noise had languished in development purgatory since 2004 until Noah Baumbach picked up the project in 2021. His adaptation will feature his wife and frequent collaborator, Greta Gerwig, as well as Adam Driver, the star of his most recent film, Marriage Story. André Benjamin and Don Cheadle round out the cast. Almost guaranteed to be an awards contender, White Noise comes to Netflix in 2022.
Salem’s Lot Gives the Stephen King Book A Modern Remake
This 1975 horror volume is the sophomore effort of giant of the genre Stephen King. It’s his personal favorite, as well as the favorite of many fans and the winner of several literary prizes. In Salem’s Lot, an author named Ben Mears returns to the town in Maine where he grew up after 25 years away in hopes of sparking his creativity. He plans to write about a supposedly haunted house that gave him quite a scare in his childhood. But just as Ben begins to feel at home in Salem’s Lot again, he discovers the town and the old house’s supernatural secret.
Salem’s Lot was twice adapted into television miniseries. Warner Bros. Pictures’ cinematic version is scheduled to premiere in theaters on September 9th, 2022. The film was written and directed by Gary Dauberman (of the Annabelle movies) and stars Lewis Pullman, Mackenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp and Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones’ Euron Greyjoy) in a pivotal role.
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