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https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-023-09947-z
Harper Bullard1
Abstract
This paper examines the role streaming networks played in transforming the world of
book-to-film adaptation. In 2013, Netflix debuted the first ever television show commis-
sioned by a streaming service, House of Cards: a story inspired by Michel Dobb’s 1989
novel. From then on streaming services became a go-to source for backlist books look-
ing for a second life and another chance at the bestsellers list. An analysis of book adap-
tations produced by streaming services alongside the subsequent New York Times best-
sellers list shows that the freedom and creative liberties these companies have allowed
in their adaptations has produced wildly successful projects with the potential to launch
lesser-known books into prominence, often years after their initial publication.
Since the dawn of film, screenwriters have looked to the publishing industry for
inspiration and material, adding a new dimension to beloved stories by bringing
them to the big screen. It was often the crowning achievement of a publishing com-
pany to have their books turned into a movie, not to mention a financial gold mine.
Still, this was an elusive dream that many authors would never see come to fruition.
Only the newest, most popular bestsellers had a chance at making it into a block-
buster movie. If an author missed this window of success, adaptation was out of the
question. Then, Netflix rocked the world of television by introducing the concept
of streaming and offering an avenue to adaptation for backlist books, giving them a
new life and a second chance at the bestsellers list.
* Harper Bullard
Hb95410n@pace.edu
1
Pace University, 360 W 46th Street Frnt 2, New York, NY 10036, USA
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Publishing Research Quarterly
The early 2010s brought about a golden age of book to film adaptation. Of the one
hundred highest grossing films of the decade, twenty-three were book adaptations
which, altogether, brought over twenty-one billion dollars total to the worldwide
box office.1 Series such as Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games accu-
mulated cult-like fanbases to rival those of other long established movie franchises.
These movies made celebrities of their authors—JK Rowling (Harry Potter), John
Green (The Fault In Our Stars), and Stephanie Meyer (Twilight) became household
names—but these authors did not need Hollywood’s help to sell their books. By
2000, the Harry Potter series had already been on The New York Times Bestsellers
List for 79 weeks in a row.2 The first movie wouldn’t premiere until 2001. Likewise,
Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series had spent 49 weeks on The New York Times Best-
sellers List by the publication of the third book, months before the release of the first
movie.3 Other popular adaptations of the decade such as Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn,
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
had seen similar sales prior to adaptation.
While these few bestsellers were finding never before seen levels of success on
the big screen, hundreds of authors debuted books with little to no hope of ever see-
ing their name in starry lights. “The reality is, most books don’t ever get made into
movies, at all,” says Jennifer Laughran, a Senior Agent at the Andrea Brown Liter-
ary Agency.4 Movie productions take a great deal of time and money, so executives
must be selective about which projects they choose to delegate those resources to.
A bestselling novel with a built-in audience of readers is a sure bet and will almost
always win out over a lesser-known work no matter how good that work may be–a
fact which became increasingly obvious as the 2010s progressed.
Those few who were lucky enough to be selected for adaptation were still affected
by these strictures in other ways. The financial strains of creating these exception-
ally expensive movies left very little room for deviation from precedent. A standard
author contract left the author no control over the final product.5 On occasion they
may have been consulted, but for the most part they were required to stand by and
watch as somebody else retold the story they had created, often by forcing it into a
premade template which did not match the style of the original piece, leaving both
readers and author frustrated. A prime example of this is the 2010 adaptation of
Rick Riordan’s worldwide best seller Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.6
The Percy Jackson7 series, the first of which was published in 2005, was one of
the most popular middle grade series of its time. It told the story of a 12-year-old
boy with ADHD and dyslexia who discovers that his learning disabilities are actu-
ally signs that he is a demigod. Middle schoolers all over the world identified with
1
See [1].
2
Smith [33].
3
Bosman [2].
4
Laughran [22].
5
Riordan [29].
6
Columbus [4].
7
Riordan [28].
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Percy and his cohort of friends, flocking to the shelves each time a new installment
was released. The series had all the markers of a successful movie franchise: a large,
enthusiastic fanbase, a regular spot on the New York Times Bestsellers List, and a
well-developed, fantastical world which resembled, in scale, those of Twilight, The
Hunger Games and Harry Potter. The only difference was that while the heroes of
most of these films were older teenagers (even the Harry Potter kids were well into
their teen years at this point), Percy and his friends were only 12 years old. The pro-
duction team, keen on reigning in the teen audience which had turned out in such
force for those other films, made the choice to age up the characters, against the ada-
mant will of the story’s author.8
Similar deviations were made in the crafting of the script. It seemed to author
Rick Riordan as though they had chosen to “pretend the book doesn’t exist,”9 and
shape a script which conformed to the standards of the time but lost the heart of
what readers had loved so much about the original story. In a March 2009 note to
the producers, Riordan writes “The script as a whole is terrible. I don’t simply mean
that it deviates from the book, though certainly it does that to point[sic] of being
almost unrecognizable as the same story. Fans of the books will be angry and disap-
pointed. They will leave the theater in droves and generate horrible word of mouth.
That is an absolute given if the script goes forward as it stands now.”10 Sure enough,
Riordan was proven correct when the movie premiered. The young readers of the
book, and the family members who would have accompanied them, were alienated
from the production, while the film on its own received poor reviews and failed to
attract the teen fans they had hoped for. A second film was produced, with even less
success than the first, and eventually the franchise as a whole was dropped.
The disappointment of the Percy Jackson series was followed by a succession
of other failed book adaptations, including The Giver by Lois Lowry,11 Beautiful
Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl,12 and The Mortal Instruments: City
of Bones by Cassandra Clare,13 primarily due to the same attempts to force these
stories into the templates of those who had come before. Eventually, even Veron-
ica Roth’s Divergent series—which had flourished during the production of its first
two movies— spiraled into financial distress after a failed attempt to follow the cur-
rent precedent in book adaptation and split the final movie into two parts. Without
enough in-book material to support this decision, the story floundered and the final
movie was canceled.14 It seemed the glory days of book-to-film adaptation were
coming to an end.
At the same time, something odd was happening in the world of television.
Streaming services, which had previously been relegated to the simple distribution
8
Riordan [29].
9
Riordan [29].
10
Riordan [29].
11
Vary [36].
12
Gornstein [14].
13
Stern [34].
14
Harrison [19].
13
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of viewing material, had begun making their own shows. In 2013, the same year
that Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief failed to impress theater audiences, Net-
flix debuted the first ever television show commissioned by a streaming service,15
House of Cards16: a story inspired by Michel Dobb’s 1989 novel.17 The series, star-
ring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, was highly praised by viewers and would con-
tinue on for six seasons. Then, just over six months later Orange is the New Black,18
the Netflix original adaptation of Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir of the same name,19
rocked the world of television, and changed Hollywood’s approach to book adapta-
tion forever.20
When Orange is the New Black debuted, it was all anyone could talk about. Dra-
matic, diverse, and ripe with political commentary, the female-led prison show
paved the way for a new era of streamed television. “‘Orange’ was the first series
to show us how streaming TV would really work and to teach us how to watch
it,” claims prolific New York Times television critic, James Poniewozik. “When it
arrived in summer 2013, it was not the first original series to air on Netflix. But it
was really the first “Netflix series” in the sense we think of it now.”21
As a book adaptation, Orange is the New Black could not have been more dif-
ferent than its predecessors. Using Piper Kerman’s memoir as a jumping off point,
creator Jenji Kohan weaves a much bigger story, turning a 327 page book into a
wielding seven season show, all while staying true to the themes and heart of the
original— a model that would be replicated by other successful streaming adapta-
tions, such as Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The series was a grand success and by
season four 6.7 million people were tuning in for the show’s season premiere.22 Not
to be left behind, Hulu followed suit and, in 2017 debuted its subversive adaptation
of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Shortly after, Amazon Prime handed
forth a cheeky series inspired by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel,
Good Omens. None of these shows fit into the carefully defined template set forth by
the silver screen, and audiences were loving it.
The success of these shows indicated two things to streaming services: Book
adaptations were key to the success of their new production endeavors, and if they
wanted to set themselves apart from mainstream television, then these adaptations
would have to be like nothing the world had ever seen before. Subsequently, Netflix
embarked on a “book buying spree”,23 acquiring the rights to dozens of books, with
the intention of turning every one of them into televised programming.24 “There’s
just no other substitute for the amount of work and creativity that goes into a book,”
15
D’Addario [5].
16
Willimon [38].
17
Dobbs [8].
18
Kohan, Orange Is the New Black.
19
Kerman, Orange Is the New Black.
20
Poniewozik [25].
21
Poniewozik [25].
22
Holloway [20].
23
Boog [3].
24
Boog [3].
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said Matt Thunell, V-P of original series at Netflix, as quoted by Publishers Weekly
correspondent Jason Boog.25
This “book-buying spree”26 was revolutionary to the publishing industry, not only
due to the sheer number of books that Netflix was acquiring, but because of the
kinds of books that were being bought. Unlike its Blockbuster predecessors, Netflix
was not just looking for bestsellers.27 Netflix executives were looking for a good
story, whatever form that might take. Suddenly the doors to adaptation, previously
long-since closed to many backlist novels, were thrown open once more.
In 1983, Kentucky native, Walter Tevis wrote a quiet book about a fictional chess
player named Beth Harmon, entitled The Queen’s Gambit.2829 Though it did hit the
New York Times Bestsellars list briefly, overall the book performed so poorly that
it failed to reach even a second printing by the time of Tevis’s death the follow-
ing year.30 Tevis was a prolific writer, if not a household name, and had a number
of more successful books adapted into film, including The Man Who Fell to Earth,
starring David Bowie, and The Hustler, starring Paul Newman. But The Queen’s
Gambit, it seemed, was not destined for the big screen.31 That is, until writer/pro-
ducer Allan Scott discovered the book in 1989 and decided to option it for five years
before finally purchasing the rights in full in 1993.32
Even so, the path to adaptation was a long and hard road for The Queen’s Gambit.
Over the next 30 years, Allan would work with numerous different directors, all who
fell through for one reason or another. At this point, The Queen’s Gambit was a rela-
tively unsuccessful book with a long-dead author and half-a-dozen failed adaptation
attempts. Its chances of someday gracing the silver-screen were growing dimmer
with every passing year. Then Netflix came onto the scene.
In 2017, Netflix expressed interest in The Queen’s Gambit screenplay, which
Scott had partnered with screenwriter Scott Frank to write, though the stream-
ing service had a few demands. Netflix wanted a TV series, not a movie, and they
wanted the story to go beyond what was written on the page, in the vein of Orange
is the New Black and the Handmaid’s Tale.33 “Scott was very keen on that but I was
less keen,” Allan said of the changes, when speaking to The Sunday Post’s Stevie
Gallacher. “He was right, though. There’s a huge amount of story you can poke your
nose into that’s not necessarily in the book.”
The pair made the changes, and in October 2020, while the world was in lock-
down, The Queen’s Gambit34 premiered. Overnight, it became one of Netflix’s most
watched shows ever, with over 62 million accounts tuning in during the first 28 days
25
Boog [3].
26
Boog [3].
27
Boog [3].
28
Dirda [7].
29
Tevis [35].
30
Dirda [7].
31
Dirda [7].
32
Gallacher [12].
33
Gallacher [12].
34
Frnak and Scott [11].
13
Publishing Research Quarterly
35
Aten “Netflix’s Most Popular Show Is an Overnight Success That Took 30 Years to Make”.
36
See [37].
37
Han [16].
38
Johnson [21].
39
Han, [15].
40
Han [17].
41
See [24].
42
Feldman [9].
13
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specifically, be Asian. That was the biggest challenge.”43 There were even a few
incidents early in the process, where someone suggested that Lara Jean be changed
to a white character, though Jenny was sure to clarify that this did not involve any-
one who ended up working on the project.44 She added that “the alarming part of it
was that people didn’t understand why that was an issue.”45
Despite these tribulations, Han was able to find a home for her series with Netf-
lix, and on August 17, 2018 To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before premiered with Viet-
namese actress, Lana Condor, at the helm. Following the release of the movie, the
novel version of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before shot to a level of notoriety that
none of Han’s previous books had been able to achieve. Within weeks, it was back
on The New York Times Bestsellers List, where it remained until March 19, 2019, a
whooping 38 weeks—more than nine times as long as the book’s original stint on
the list. The incredible response to To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before helped green-
light two more movies in the series, and paved the way for an adaptation of The
Summer I Turned Pretty, starring Lola Tung, another Asian-American actress as the
lead character, Belly—a casting choice that, according to Han, was made easier by
the success of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.46 Just like To All The Boys I Loved
Before, The Summer I Turned Pretty made a grand return to the bestsellers list fol-
lowing its June 2022 premiere on Amazon Prime where it continues to reside.47
In the early 2010s, this new approach to literary adaptation was experimental,
to say the least. Audiences had a certain set of pre-established expectations when it
came to book-to-screen adaptations, and there was no way to know how they would
respond to this new philosophy. Was there any chance that an older, lesser-known
book could draw the same kind of viewership as a worldwide bestseller? Would
readers accept the huge deviations from the source material necessary to update or
expand the stories? Would audiences be just as excited about watching these stories
from home as they were when watching them in a movie theater? It was all a gam-
ble, but one that paid off well for the streaming services, the authors, and the pub-
lishers alike, and culminated in a literary adaptation that became the most watched
Netflix series ever: Bridgerton.48
When Julia Quinn, author of The Bridgertons49 series, first heard that Shonda
Rhimes, the powerhouse showrunner behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How To
Get Away with Murder, wanted to adapt her work, she was stunned.50 Quinn’s series
had been out for nearly twenty years at that point, and she had never had any indi-
cation from Hollywood that they were interested in adapting her books. “Truly, I
never thought this would happen to me. And I never thought it would happen to
anyone because nobody was adapting romance novels, historical, or really, even
43
Han [18].
44
Han [18].
45
Han [18].
46
Feldman [9].
47
See [24].
48
Rhimes [27].
49
Quinn [26].
50
Lenker “Julia Quinn reflects on seeing her books come to life in Bridgerton”.
13
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contemporary, for screen other than Hallmark movies,” she said in a 2020 interview
with Entertainment Weekly, posted on Christmas morning, the day of Bridgerton’s
debut on Netflix. “If somebody was going to do a period piece, they wanted to do
another adaptation of Jane Austen or one of the Bronte sisters.”51
But Shonda Rhimes had noticed Bridgeton and she, along with show-creator
Chris Van Dusen, had a vision for these particular books. Through a color-con-
scious casting process, Rhimes and her team were going to create a romantic fantasy
world, set in a place that vaguely resembled regency-period London, where Lords
and Ladies of all races would reside in the city’s grand manors, and where a black
Queen Charlotte presided over the marriage seasons. Furthermore, this world would
walk a thin line between history and modernity. The dresses would resemble the
silhouettes of the era, though they would possess a decidedly modern feel, the girls
would wear their hair loosely around their shoulders more often than not, and even
the primmest of debutantes would be found in precarious positions behind closed
doors. “Period shows tend to be a little conservative and a little traditional,” Van
Dusen told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re not making your Grandmother’s period
piece.”52 And Rhimes, having recently made the jump from her longtime home on
primetime television at ABC to a nine-figure deal at Netflix,53 knew that Netflix was
the place to bring this vision to life. “I just want to be in a place where I can make
stuff and no one’s going to bother me or make me feel like I’m beholden,” she told
The Hollywood Reporter about her decision to sign with Netflix. “The reason I came
to Netflix is because I wanted to be able to make television without anybody both-
ering me.”54 And once she had this creative freedom, the first project she turned to
was Bridgerton.
Bridgerton took the creative freedom of previous streaming shows, and pushed it
to its limit. The result was a project that looked and felt like nothing anyone had ever
seen on television before, and told a story that was deeper and broader than what had
been originally written on the page, while still delighting readers with its ability to
convey the heart of what had drawn so many of them to the books in the first place.55
“I think the teams at Netflix and Shondaland have created a series that captures all
of the wit, charm, emotion, tension, chemistry and romance at the heart of Julia
Quinn’s Bridgerton novels; infused it with a modern sensibility in terms of inclusiv-
ity, sensuality, feminism; and wrapped it in a rich, dazzling, opulent visual package.
It’s brilliant,” says Quinn’s editor, Lyssa Keusch, when asked about the success of
the adaptation despite the many changes to the source material.56 And she certainly
wasn’t the only one to feel this way. When Bridgerton debuted on Christmas day
51
Lenker “Julia Quinn reflects on seeing her books come to life in Bridgerton”.
52
Rose [31].
53
Rose [32].
54
Rose [32].
55
Gillette [13].
56
Gillette [13].
13
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it quickly became Netflix’s most-watched original show ever, with over 82 million
member households tuning in within the show’s first twenty-eight days.57
Within weeks, The Bridgerton series was reaping the benefits of its on-screen
success. By January 5th, The Duke and I, the first book in the series, found itself
on The New York Times Bestseller List for the first time ever, and in the number one
spot nonetheless.58 Within the month five Bridgerton books had made the list,59 an
accomplishment almost unheard of in the romance genre, and while Quinn and her
editor, Keusch, were ecstatic about the entirely unexpected second-life these books
had garnered, they were even more excited about the long-term implication these
kind of sales numbers held for the romance genre in general. "I’m thrilled to see the
way these adaptations have introduced viewers to the universal storytelling might of
romance writers, who have long been overlooked," Keusch says. "The stories they
tell are for everyone; at the core, they reveal what it means to be connected, to be
human."60
Streaming had become a beacon of hope for authors who once thought adapta-
tion a dream too far out of reach. But it was not only authors new to the screen who
were pivoting to streaming. Stephen King, one of the most famous horror writers of
our time, has seen his work adapted for the big-screen time and time again. And yet,
in 2021, King told Screenrant journalist Molly Feser that he preferred to work with
streaming services, and would be turning to them for future projects.61 “I don’t have
to worry about cutting things to fit or end things so they can get to their Prilosec
commercials,” King said when his 2021 Apple TV series, Lisey’s Story, based on
his 2006 novel by the same name, debuted. “This is a long book, but thank God for
streaming because you have a chance to tell a story with a little more nuance, a little
more texture to it.”62
He is joined in this turn toward streaming by bestselling author Rick Riordan, the
author of the series that led to those disastrous Percy Jackson movies in 2013. After
Riordan’s heartbreaking experience with Hollywood, he and his readers were left to
mourn what they believed to be the only opportunity they had to see their beloved
series brought to life. Then, book adaptations became more and more common on
streaming services, and Riordan saw the difference in how these adaptations were
being handled compared to their silver-screen predecessors. For the first time, he
began to wonder if there was a way to reclaim the Percy Jackson adaptation.63 In
2020, Riordan announced that he’d signed a deal with Disney plus to adapt Percy
Jackson and the Lightning Thief into an eight-episode series with the option to con-
tinue on with the rest of the series.
57
Low [23].
58
De Leon [6].
59
De Leon [6].
60
Gillette [13].
61
Feser [10].
62
Feser [10].
63
Riordan [30].
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Riordan, who had learned much from his previous experiences with Hollywood,
ensured that he was very much involved with the process, and even sat in on the
writer’s room. When writing about the process in a blogpost Riordan said, “I am
over the moon about the level of thoughtfulness and love for the PJO book series
that everyone is bringing to the discussion. This is a group that knows the books,
understands the importance of making longtime (and brand new) readers happy, but
also making a show that feels fresh and surprising in the best ways, so even if you
think you know the story backwards and forwards, you will find the show a compel-
ling experience. And if you’ve never read the books, it will work for you, too!”64
He also points out that though the original Percy Jackson movie touted an all-white
cast, in line with the descriptions in the book, the new showrunners have made the
choice to diversify the series, namely through the casting of Leah Jeffries as Percy’s
best friend and eventual love interest, Annabeth Chase. Though the Percy Jackson
series is still in the process of filming, Riordan believes it will be just as satisfying
to readers as past streaming adaptations, due to the streaming service’s willingness
to truly dig into the material and flesh out the story beyond the page in the way that
brought such praise to shows like The Queen’s Gambit and Bridgerton. The book
series itself has always sold well, but there is no question that, if the adaptation is
as brilliant as Riordan expects it to be, then it will serve to launch the books into an
even longer stint on The New York Times Best Sellers list and introduce the books to
a new generation of readers.
The relatively recent introduction of film into the long-standing world of fiction
writing has brought with it the inexplicable magic of seeing the stories that have
long resided in reader’s heads, brought to life before them. Hollywood capitalized
on this wonder and brought hundreds of bestselling books to the screen, much to the
delight of fans around the world, but as with all things progress was necessary. The
thrill of watching one’s favorite book on screen became diminished when that book
was crammed into Hollywood’s template with no consideration for the material, and
many rich, deserving stories were deprived of their moment in the spotlight simply
because they could not compete with the dominating franchises. Streaming services
saw the incredible stories that were falling by the wayside and took advantage of this
blindspot. They collected overlooked stories from backlist books, and offered the
creatives in their arsenal the space to truly dig into the heart of those books, and the
freedom to experiment with their storytelling in a way the team behind a blockbuster
movie could not. The result was a series of successful adaptations that brought side-
lined books back to the forefront, offering them a second chance at the bestsellers
list. Publishers and authors alike profited from the sudden influx of income based on
books edited years, or even decades prior; streaming services asserted themselves as
a legitimate, and even preferable avenue to adaptation for future authors; and view-
ers were delighted with new and exciting material. The only question remaining is,
where will they go from here?
64
Riordan [30].
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Publishing Research Quarterly
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