The Art of Adaptation - Films in 2025

Adaptation to Social Environment No.2 Drawing
Jirasak Plabootong

Hello, Sup fans. 

Welcome to the fantastic year of 2025!

Since wrapping up my Choose Your Weapon series 2024, I've pondered what will be next, hoping for something, IDK, deeper, more diverse, less derived. The three Ds.

3D! 

The realization fueled the idea for The Art of Adaptation.

Let's Look Deeper

    ADAPTATION 

    1. a process of changing one medium to another. "She adapted the novel to a TV series."

    2. a physiological change to outer stimuli. "The cat's eyes adjust quickly to light."

    3. a response to external pressures. "It snowed so she put on her coat." 

In essence, adaptation is changing to make one thing suitable for a new or altered purpose. Sometimes we are compelled to adapt. Other times, it is part of the act of creating.

It's this second idea I want to explore today, ie, authoring a screen adaptation from a literary source. It's harder than it might seem. 

First of all, the 'property', the book or novella, has to have a producer interested in securing the rights to use the work. Usually, it is 'optioned' for a fee and the producer then has x amount of time (a year or ten?) to come up with the funding to go ahead.

Then, they need writers to create the script, hopefully sticking to the spirit of the original work. At that point, writers will want an essential understanding of the characters, plot and genre/feel. Face it. That's not always easy to grasp or even easy to agree upon. 

And Diversify

Finally, there is the logistics. Take this example from 5 Tips from the Pros for Adapting Books into Film Scripts by Jourdan Aldredge:

"Some tribes of American Indians had a word to describe those of their brethren who sat around thinking deep thoughts. Literally the word translated to The Disease of Long-Thinking. ... often lead characters in novels suffer from this disease. When essential plot information is presented only in a character’s thought or in the character’s internal world, one solution is to give this character a sounding board, another character, to which his thoughts can be voiced aloud. Either adapt an existing character from the novel or create a new one..." 

With these ideas in mind, look at a few anticipated Spec Fic adaptations to the screen coming in 2025.

Beyond the Derivative

The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig

I read Matthew Haig's The Midnight Library a few years back and though depressing at times, it was a powerful experience. What's not to love about a magical library that hovers between life and death. Imagine my delight to hear that it's being produced by StudioCanal and Blueprint Pictures, offering us a rendition of the main, Nora Seed, and her incredible journey. 

We are promised a glimpse of her introduction to the incredible library that allows her to live different lives... I can't wait!

Klara And The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2017. In Klara and The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing world through the perspective of an A.I., specifically asking what it means to love.

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. Amazon.com

The exciting news is that, not only will Klara and the Sun be adapted to film, it will be directed by Taika Waititi, with Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams starring! Ortega will play the A.I. "robot" that Adams' character buys "for her teenager."

I imagine the biggest challenge will be staying true to the unique narrative perspective of the non-human, sentient robot. How will they handle it?

The Electric State by Simon Stalenhag

From Amazon.com... Soon to be a Netflix film starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.

A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science fiction story, perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Black Mirror.

Like Klara and the Sun, we have another youngstee-with-compantion-robot story. Interesting trend, do you think?

In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system.

 As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems to unravel, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in...

And more from Netflix - Millie Bobby Brown is breathing life into a new character in the movie adaptation of The Electric State! Starring alongside Chris Pratt, she'll team up with an unlikely anti-hero (Pratt) and a robot as they all search for something in this heartwarming movie about what could happen in a world where technology rules all.

I can't wait to see how this adaptation measures up!

See more in Sup posts from our backlist: Adapting to Survive and The Down Side of Adaptation, and let us know what you think! Fav adaptation? Most true? Most divergent? 

Other Posts in the Art of Adaptation 2025

January - The Art of Adaptation - Films in 2025

February - The Art of Adaptation - Authors' Response to External Pressures

March - The Art of Adaptation - The Healing Magic of KDrama

April - The Art of Adaptation -  Reader Persuasion

May - The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 1

June - The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 2 

July - The Art of Adaptation - Alternate History

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About Kim Falconer

Kim Falconer, also writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. Currently, she is working on the third book, out in 2025.

Kim can be found on AKWilder Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and KimFalconer.com. 

Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site See you there!

Environment - More Than Meets the Eye

 

Dune by Frank Herbert - Novel Poster 1965

Today I want to explore the impact environment can have on a story. From subtle to profound, I think you'll find there is more than meets the eye...

First off, think of stories like Dune, Frank Herbert's SFF novel recently produced as a Netflix Series. I mean, Dune! The storms that cover rich resources, the sandworms that devour all and pose a constant risk to life and limb?

Or maybe you remember the dangers on Pern, the planet where 'threads' fall from the sky and like acid, devour anything organic. Anything!

The White Dragon - art by the Unicorn Lady

You might say the environment, in these cases, takes the lead role in the plot, culture and potential outcomes of a political or simply survival nature. 

If you still aren't convinced, try a hypothetical scenario that involves a team of scientists colonizing Jupiter. There are, of course, issues of atmosphere, gravity, temperature and distance from the home world. But what if the colony landed more than five hundred years ago...

BEFORE the storm - now known as the 'red spot' - developed? That red circle turns out, for real, to be ten-thousand miles wide and gaining velocity over the centuries. Suddenly this story has a built-in antagonist to rival the sandworms on Dune or the deadly Thread on Pern.

Jupiter's Red Spot data collected by NASA's Juno spacecraft

 

Two recent YA Fantasy books released in May give further examples: Sara Beth Durst's The Lake House and Zena Shapter's When Dark Roots Hunt. 

The Lake House, as per the blurb:

Claire’s grown up triple-checking locks. Counting her steps. Second-guessing every decision. It’s just how she’s wired – her worst-case scenarios never actually come true.

Until she arrives at an off-the-grid summer camp to find a blackened, burned husk instead of a lodge – and no survivors, except her and two other late arrivals: Reyva and Mariana.

When the three girls find a dead body in the woods, they realize none of this is an accident. Someone, something, is hunting them. Something that hides in the shadows. Something that refuses to let them leave....

Can I say right away that the writing is brilliant and...it's scary. Very scary! 

Part of what makes it so is the environment - the huge, murky lake surrounded by endless, dark and thick forest. Not a soul in sight.. but did you hear that? It would be impossible to achieve the intensity in, say, a populated city or suburbia. The environment here holds sway. 

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When Dark Roots Hunt has a sense of foreboding and dread to it as well. From the back blurb: 

Don't go out onto the lake. Wyann trees search the shallows to spear passing prey with their roots. Giant water-ants hunt anything that moves on the water-skin. Sala's village survives hidden behind a wall of poisonous ivy, because everyone agrees: don't go out onto the lake.

But when her village refuses to listen to sense, and continues squeezing beautiful pond-bred 'keeiling' fish to death for their precious saliva oils, Sala has no choice. She will risk it all to prove herself one last time, else leave everything behind for the dark shaded swamps beneath the towering hillfarms of Palude.

At least that's the plan before a strange comet crosses the night sky, throwing her and her pet pointer into a race through wyann-infested swampland to unearth long-hidden truths and stir rivalries into a terrifying conflict set to change the world of Palude forever. Sala must do whatever it takes to face the truth of who she is: to save her village, to save her family, to save herself.

If only they had listened.

This story is compelling, impossible to put down, and as you read, you quickly find that the environment is as much a key to the mysteries as the people who try to survive it.

I invite you to consider the environment in a new way as you read, to see if it too is a character with needs and wants and calamity to offer. 

If you find one or two outstanding, I would love to hear about it!

xxKim

Posts in the 'More Than Meets the Eye' Series

Book Titles

The End

Backstory

Environment

Styling Characters

Desire

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Kim Falconer, currently writing as A K Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. Currently, she is working on the third out in 2024

Kim can be found on  AKWilder Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site 

Adapting to Survive

 

Cursed - the legend of King Arthur is reenvisioned on Netflix.

Adapting a book to the screen has many names - remake, reboot, revision... But they all have one thing in common: the story is, in part or whole, rewritten to survive.

From the point of view of the book, this isn't always good, where 'good' equals accurate or in the spirit of.... As I mentioned once in The Down Side of Adaptation, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides reminds us that the book's story radically changes once it becomes visual. 

"It's no longer a book, and to try to insist on it being a book will usually make it a poorer film." - Jeffrey Eugenides

In the world of storytelling, adaptation is about the book withstanding a translation to 'motion pictures' and in the wild kingdom, adaptation means exactly the same thing

The okapi has survived 16 million years through adaptations.

For today's post, I thought it would be fun to compare three evolutionary adaptations -- structural, physiological and behavioral -- in nature with those found in storytelling. For example, the okapi demonstrates structural and physiological adaptations that have allowed it to survive. 

    1) they have scent glands on their feet to mark their territory

    2) they use infrasonic calls to communicate with their calves so predators can't hear

    3) their tongues are 14-18 inch-long tongues used for browsing and washing their ears and eyes

Shadow and Bone | Six of Crows Macmillian 

A book adaptation with just as surprising structural and physiological changes as the Okapi is the new Netflix series adaptation of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. In this revision, characters and environments are combined to survive as something new.

Instead of solely adapting its namesake book, the show combines it with characters and geography from Bardugo’s duology Six of Crows. - Nerdist

Another interesting form of adaptation in nature is based on behavoral changes. 

When it comes to this kind of adaptations in nature, squirrels take the cake. Did you know they can hibernate for up to 12 months? 

Photography: Alamy - Grey Squirrel Study at UE

A new series, also to Netflix, took the behavioral route when it adapted the time-honoured story of King Arthur. You might notice right away that Merlin doesn't quite behave the way we expect given a Disney upbringing. If you haven't seen it, you'll want to prepare yourself!

(the old) Merlin is a figure of great power and wisdom. His magical abilities are substantial and he’s generally depicted as a sort of all-seeing sage, who engineers the birth of Arthur and the rise of Camelot before falling victim to an ill-timed romance.

 Gustav Skarsgard’s performance brings this very different kind of Merlin to life.

In Cursed, Merlin is, to be blunt, a world-weary mess. Stripped of his magic and overly fond of alcohol, this character seems the furthest thing possible from an all-knowing, all-powerful wizard. And that’s not just an intentional choice on the part of Wheeler – it’s one that places this Merlin closer to his Welsh beginnings than many versions of the character that came afterward. - Den of Geeks

Love them or not, the revisions films tell of our beloved books are different, including sometimes shocking and unexpected takes. But, just like in nature, they have been adapted to survive new challenges in the environment, for better or worse.

How about you? What are your favorite adaptations? Most appalling? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Try the Audio Sample

Kim Falconer, currently writing as A K Wilder, has just released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy.

Kim can be found on  AKWilder Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site or have a listen to the audio version on the right.

Checking things off the list

2018 Year of the New: Eliminate My To-Watch list.

I can't believe its July. I'm just not ready. I have so many things to do.

Though May was a great month where I accomplished most of my writing goals, June sort of, well, sucked.  Not going to sugarcoat it. June was a wickedly horrible mental health month confounded by migraines, tension, illness, and a birthday to just make sure and hammer in that I am mortal. Fun Times.

So for July, I'm going to focus on something I know that I have talked about before and I know will get me on the straight and narrow: feeding my muse. Though most writers don't really believe in a muse, I do. I believe there is a creative spirit  in the back of my head that is responsible for inspiration, and sometimes, she gets pissed at me and scampers off to go play with the wood nymphs that live in the backyard. 

To lure her back and take a bit of a rest, this month I'm going to focus on watching movies, documentaries, and TV series that I promised myself I was going to watch. Things that sparked my interest, things someone recommend, things that won awards for best screenplay, or were just on a list as the best horror movies on Netflix.

I have a lot of lists in my life. To-Do lists, grocery lists, honey-do lists, goals lists, edits lists, scene checklists, and some days I feel that I honestly will never accomplish any of those things on any of my lists. The guilt that comes along with all those lists is like a wet blanket on any creativity. I've been told that I need to stop "should"-ing on myself, but I can't help it.

To help out myself and my Netflix account, I'm going to start wading through the NEW programs that I have saved and try not to just listen to the same things over and over again (I'm looking at you DAREDEVIL). Watching things that I might not normally gravitate toward just to shake things up a bit.


A few currently in the queue are:

Set it Up-(movie) a rom-com about two people who fall in love after setting up their bosses. Who doesn't like a strong rom-com?
Queen of the South- (TV Show)  a female takes over a drug ring. Strong women, hello?
The Keepers-(documentary)  a nun takes on a priest accused of abuse.
Black Mirror- (Season 4) sci-fi tales of morality that have won several awards for writing
Coffee for All- (documentary) about free coffee around the world. Strong coffee, hello?
Ugly Delicious- (TV Show/Documentary) about a man who just loves food.

I feel like just knocking a few of these titles off my list will help feed the muse. And once she is feed, she will begin to question the world again, wonder about everything, and in that wonder is where the stories live, in the spaces between.

Those I suspect I might also need to NOT turn into a couch potato, so I'll be employing a few of these as well.

Please let me know if there is something that you found fascinating and I'll be tweeting away about what I thought of my a-muse-ing treats.

Thank you, gentle readers, and Carry On.

Amanda Arista
Author