For those who spend their time perusing their local bookstores, putting debut novels on hold at the library weeks before release, and harboring strong opinions on dog-earing pages, there’s nothing more exciting than watching beloved characters leap from the page onto the screen. For the authors, playwrights, directors, screenwriters, actors, and craftspersons behind these 10 adaptations, making that leap is the thrill that fuels creation of new art. Follow along to read more about the new and upcoming page-to-screen films and series on Netflix.

La Bola Negra

“The central question is what we do with our past, with our inheritance, with the objects and art that remain, with the traces history leaves behind,” says La Bola Negra co-writer and co-director Javier Calvo about the focus of the already acclaimed film, which is partially adapted from and inspired by an unfinished work by Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. “It’s a what-if,” says co-writer and co-director Javier Ambrossi of the collaborators’ process of imagining an ending to Lorca’s play. “What if Federico could …” He leaves the sentence open.

Journalist Rosalind Jana explores Lorca’s background and the context in which the adaptation takes place. Read here. 

In Waves

“I wanted the film to convey through the characters an urgency to live and to believe in the future,” says first-time feature filmmaker Phuong Mai Nguyen of her new film In Waves, an adaptation of AJ Dungo’s graphic novel of the same name. “Sharing this story felt like a necessity to me.” 

The director discusses translating the book into an animated feature, the process of depicting the history of surfing onscreen, and her thoughts on the film’s enduring themes. 

The Corrections

“The fact that none of my novels has been adapted for a visual medium had become something of a point of pride,” says bestselling author Jonathan Franzen. “And yet, here I am trying to ruin that record. What am I doing? It has a lot to do with a hunch, a hope that there will be dimensions of the book that I’m unaware of that will be revealed by great actors working with a great director.” 

In a conversation ahead of the 25th anniversary of his National Book Award–winning The Corrections, Franzen reflected on the origins of his beloved novel and revisiting it for the screen in the process of writing the upcoming series adaptation starring Meryl Streep and directed by Cord Jefferson. 

East of Eden

“I fell in love with this book when I was a teenager,” says writer Zoe Kazan. “The whole book was really meaningful for me, the intergenerational story and the questions of legacy. What gets handed down, and what are you carrying, and how do we reconcile ourselves with our shadow selves?” 

Kazan, who adapted the John Steinbeck classic into a sweeping limited series, shares what haunted her about the novel over the years, what makes Cathy Ames (played by Florence Pugh) such a fascinating character, and why the story of the Trasks feels so urgent. 

Lord of the Flies

“I’ve been reading the book since I was 11 years old, so I’ve been reading it for 35 years,” says screenwriter Jack Thorne of William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, now transformed into a limited series. “It’s a different relationship to any other book that I’ve adapted.” Thorne brings the book to the screen in a prescient time. “As a society, we’re having a conversation right now about boys,” says the writer, who also scripted the award-winning series Adolescence. He views Golding’s source material as “a tender portrait of a lot of very complicated boys having a complicated relationship with their status and anger.”

Read more aboutwhat Thorne and director Marc Munden saw in the classic novel that makes it resonate strongly with audiences today. 

The Mosquito Bowl

When writing the screenplay for the World War II drama The Mosquito Bowl, filmmaker Peter Berg took an immersive approach. “I’d spend my days on the base with the recruits in the Marine Corps, just absorbing the energy, and then I would go back, and I’d read Buzz Bissinger’s book, and I’d sit at the tiny little desk and start writing the movie,” he says. “I believe they call it ‘esprit de corps.’ It’s a spirit that is present in every person that you encounter on this base. It’s a clear-eyed sense of purpose that’s very, very inspiring.”

Berg discusses adapting Bissinger’s nonfiction book for the screen, the importance of authenticity in his work, and creating camaraderie among his cast.

Pride and Prejudice

Bestselling author Dolly Alderton has captured the experience of being a modern woman in her memoirs, essays, and fiction. Now Alderton takes her turn at capturing the experience of a group of beloved Jane Austen heroines with the upcoming Pride and Prejudice series. “Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story, and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it,” she says. “In it lies the opportunity to examine the complexities of love, family, friendship, and society, while aspiring to Austen’s delightfully observational voice.”

Get to know the cast and creative team behind the latest iteration of the canonical novel, as they join Alderton on the journey from page to the screen. 

Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri’s second collection of short fiction, Unaccustomed Earth, explores the lives of Indian American characters navigating cultural amalgamation, generational divides, and family obligations, as a search for belonging simmers throughout the individual stories. “This image came to me of all of these characters from the different stories sitting around the Thanksgiving table together,” says Madhuri Shekar, the showrunner adapting the collection into a series. “In the book, the one thing the stories have in common is that they’re all set in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So if all of these people technically live in the same spot, what if they all know each other? And then, suddenly, these connections started forming between them. This beautiful community just blossomed.”

Learn about Shekar’s work of weaving separate characters and worlds together into a connected narrative.

The Altruists

“From the very beginning, I was so fascinated by both Sam’s and Caroline’s real stories. I’m not nearly a good enough writer to create characters as fascinating as either Sam Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison,” says The Altruists creator Graham Moore. “One of our goals was to show both Sam and Caroline as very real people — real 26, 28-year-olds who were suddenly thrust into this position where there are billions of dollars riding on their every decision.” 

The creator, co-showrunner, and executive producer shares how New York Magazine reporting on the FTX cryptocurrency scandal inspired his limited series, what it was like working with stars Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle, and how he approached telling a story that was still unfolding. 

INK

“I’ve done a lot of plays, TV dramas, and films set in the world of our institutions, and there was something about Fleet Street [that] completely seduced me,” says screenwriter and playwright James Graham of London’s historic newspaper hub, the focus of his new film. “Almost no other country in the world has their newspapers entirely in one self-contained community.” 

The INK scribe details his journey adapting his own Olivier- and Tony Award–winning play for the screen in collaboration with director Danny Boyle and stars Jack O’Connell, Claire Foy, and Guy Pearce. 

More titles on the way

(L to R) Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, Enigma Variations, The Age of Innocence, All the Sinners Bleed, and 3 Body Problem.

Illustrations by María Jesús Contreras, Ibrahim Arafath, and Ibrahim Rayintakath

Many hotly anticipated adaptations are set to make their mark onscreen soon. From Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis to the next installment of Cixin Lu’s 3 Body Problem, adapted by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo, there are plenty of reads to add to your nightstand in preparation of your viewing experiences on the horizon in 2027.