8 Upcoming Movies And TV Shows Based On 2025 Books

As sacred as the art of crafting a novel is, you'd be hard pressed to find an author writing today who doesn't have at least the faintest image of a film adaptation in the back of their mind. In today's entertainment market (where anxious, risk-averse studio execs would rather invest in something finished and carrying even the slightest whiff of a fanbase), it sometimes feels like Hollywood sees books as overlong film treatments to be pawned off on a reader if it comes repped by the right agent.

This is nothing new for the industry. It's not uncommon for the film rights to books from popular authors — especially those with previous, well-received adaptations on their resume — to go through competitive studio bidding wars before the average reader touches a single page. Below, we've compiled a list of the eight novels published in 2025 that are already being prepared for the screen. Some are in the earliest stages of development and could be a year or two at least from hitting theaters or streamers — whereas others are just months away as of writing.

Long before Peter Swanson's latest novel "Kill Your Darlings" hit bookstore shelves, the film rights were already being fought over by studios. The author isn't particularly well-known among crowds that aren't well-read — those who follow the entertainment industry closely may remember his name from trade announcements in 2017, which hailed an upcoming adaptation of his 2015 novel "The Kind Worth Killing" starring Amber Heard. Nearly a decade later, the project has yet to materialize. However, we have a feeling the story will end differently for "Kill Your Darlings" — and that isn't just because United Artists and Amazon MGM Studios committed a wild amount of top talent to the project four months before most of the world had read a word of it.

Published by HarperCollins in June 2025, "Kill Your Darlings" is a reverse-chronological thriller that explores a seemingly perfect marriage anchored by something unspeakable from the past. When the story's couple was younger, this shared secret might've been what drew them closer together — 40 years on, it might well be the thing that drives them to murder. Per a February 2025 press release, Julia Roberts is set to produce and star as Wendy Graves, one half of the novel's central couple. Even more exciting is the film's attached director — the oft-overlooked James Gray, whose talent for complex, character-driven dramas ("Armageddon Time," "Ad Astra") would pair well with the page-turning plot of a psychological thriller like this. It is unclear, based on the limited information available, if Gray will write the screenplay as well (though one would assume he is, given that he's credited as a writer on most films he directs, including the stellar book-to-film adaptation of "The Lost City of Z").

Alice Feeney is quickly becoming one of the most dominant novelists in Hollywood. "Beautiful Ugly" will further cement her status as an attention-magnet through pages and screens alike. The mystery thriller follows a writer haunted by the disappearance of his wife after she mysteriously vanishes during a phone call a year prior to the book's events.

"Beautiful Ugly" was published by Flatiron Books in January 2025. That same month, it was announced that the relatively young production company Hidden Pictures had bought the film rights. While this was almost certainly exciting for Feeney, it was significantly less extraordinary compared to other authors — least of all due to the fact that, in January 2026, the author got to watch as a miniseries adaptation of her 2020 novel "His & Hers" dominated Netflix charts. It was the first of Feeney's novels to make it from page to screen, but hardly the first to be optioned. Her debut novel "Sometimes I Lie" (2018) was optioned twice, first by Warner Bros. in 2019 and most recently by producers Tommy Harper ("Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," "Wednesday") and Matt Charman ("Bridge of Spies") in 2024. It isn't hard to imagine that project ultimately ending up at Netflix — in addition to snapping up "His & Hers," the streamer also bought the rights to Feeney's 2021 novel "Rock Paper Scissors."

In contrast, it's likely that "Beautiful Ugly" will be adapted into a theatrical feature film. After all, Hidden Pictures most recently saw success with the Paul Feig-directed adaptation of Freida McFadden's "The Housemaid." Moreover, as the studio attempts to turn "Beautiful Ugly" into its next box office hit, Feeney will probably be busy working on another novel — with her 2026 effort, "My Husband's Wife," having already earned her another TV deal.

While they aren't necessarily common, there are more books based on fanfiction than you'd expect. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) example is "50 Shades of Grey." E.L. James' spicy take on Bella and Edward from the "Twilight" saga led to a trio of controversial but highly lucrative romantic movies. Now, Legendary Entertainment is poised to turn another romance story based on an even more popular bit of IP into a big screen event.

From April 2018 to August 2019, author SenLinYu wrote and self-published (through Archive of Our Own, of course) the fanfiction series "Manacled," which explored an alternate reality in which Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy from the "Harry Potter" books fall for one another. If you can believe it, there are actually several "Dramione" fanfic authors whose online novels were so captivating that they were re-edited and traditionally published as original works. What sets Sen's work apart is that their story takes place in a dystopia — a setting explicitly inspired by "The Handmaid's Tale." In 2025, "Manacled" was transfigured into "Alchemised" and published by Del Rey. The same month it was published, Legendary swooped in with a $3 million-plus offer to turn it into a movie.

This is one of the most recent and least mature acquisitions on this list. No directors, producers, or stars have been attached. It should be emphasized that there's still a chance it doesn't even make it to production, and Legendary merely managed to keep a competitor from taking a "Harry Potter"-sized bite of the market. Then again, the prospect of making a movie with that kind of IP even unofficially associated just seems too good to pass up — and if the emphatic Goodreads audience is any indicator, a good adaptation could generate franchise-level staying power.

Most books that become movies go through competitive bidding processes first, but few have as much tension or power involved as S. A. Cosby's "King of Ashes." The dark crime thriller, which is a chip off the same block as "Breaking Bad" and "Ozark," follows an honest (or mostly honest, anyway) financial advisor who's forced to use his white collar skills to survive a small town brutalized by organized crime. Cosby has written multiple popular crime thrillers in the 2020s that are currently being adapted for the screen, as Jerry Bruckheimer is reportedly adapting "Razorblade Tears" for Apple Original Films, following their joint success on the Brad Pitt sports drama "F1." Meanwhile, "Black Panther" and "The People vs. O.J." scribe Joe Robert Cole is deep into production on a Netflix miniseries adaptation of "All the Sinners Bleed."

The most quietly interesting part of Cosby's deal for "King of Ashes" — which is, incidentally, also going to Netflix — is that the streamer seemingly bought it as an ongoing series, despite the fact that Cosby has not yet confirmed if he has plans to write a sequel. (That would be a first for the author.) This could mean that Netflix has plans to expand the story beyond what's on the page or intends to deviate entirely. In any case, fans shouldn't be too concerned given the production companies that won the supposedly heated bidding war. In addition to Netflix, the "King of Ashes" series will be produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment (which is currently involved with Apple TV's "Cape Fear") and Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions. This same trio of companies is also producing "All the Sinners Bleed," which already has a full cast attached, including Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù.

S. A. Cosby isn't the only author getting picked up by America's former First Family. The Obamas' Higher Ground Productions teamed up with a subsidiary of the acclaimed animation studio LAIKA to buy the rights to Kate Kitamura's "Audition." Released in April 2025, "Audition" is one of the few novels on this list not to cross into either the crime or fantasy genres. Rather, it's a pure psychological thriller from a writer who grew up reading Agatha Christie, was partially inspired by the bold ambiguity of Cristina Rivera Garza's "Death Takes Me," and set out to write a book that reads like a David Lynch film feels. The story follows a New York actor (seemingly set to be portrayed by Lucy Liu) who's confronted, in the midst of rehearsals for a new stage show, by a young man claiming to be her estranged son (set to be Charles Melton).

Directing Liu and Melton is Lulu Wang, the filmmaker behind the charming 2019 family dramedy "The Farewell." This will be Wang's first feature film since then, although she recently created, executive produced, and directed all six episodes of the Amazon Prime Video miniseries "Expats," starring Nicole Kidman. It will be especially interesting to see how Wang — who is also co-writing the screenplay for "Audition" with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok ("Cost of Living") — handles the novel's particular structure. The story is divided into two conflicting timelines, one in which the actor definitively never had a child and another in which she did. Rather than being interwoven, these timelines exist as two halves of the 200-ish-page novel. Another interesting wrinkle is LAIKA; the studio only recently entered the live-action space, with "Audition" being one of three upcoming book-to-movie projects on its debut slate.

On February 25, 2025, Holly Brickley finally saw her debut novel "Deep Cuts" published by Penguin Random House. Two days later, it was announced that it would be transformed into that most coveted of film artifacts — a star-studded A24 film.

It isn't too surprising that the novel found a home with one of Hollywood's most aesthetic, formerly "outsider"-adjacent studios, given its premise. The 277-page romance story blends early-2000s analog nostalgia, indie music, and artistic obsession into an arresting, psychologically complicated romantic drama — it's the sort of thing Film Twitter would play on repeat after one listen. When the film adaptation was first announced, Saoirse Ronan had been tapped to star and produce, playing the role of an eclectic, opinionated, college-aged music lover who takes on the task of molding the raw talent of an aspiring musician she meets at school — a role originally attached to Austin Butler. However, in December of 2025, it was announced that both Ronan and Butler had parted ways with "Deep Cuts" due to scheduling conflicts, and that their roles had been recast with Cailee Spaeny ("Civil War") and Drew Starkey ("Queer").

Behind the camera, Sean Durkin stepped up to serve as both writer and director. Durkin's most recent film as of writing is "The Iron Claw," a devastating wrestling drama that was also produced in collaboration with A24. Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie are attached as producers through Central Group, a company founded in the aftermath of the professional split between Josh and Benny Safdie. The two previously produced several films with Bronstein through Elara Pictures, including their 2014 debut adaptation "Heaven Knows What." Grammy-nominated music producer Blake Mills will compose original music for the film.

If you can recall (and, reader, please do hear these next words with the appropriate old-timey Boomer accent implied), there was a time when a Nicholas Sparks novel could be turned into a critic-proof moneymaker. From "Message in a Bottle" and "A Walk to Remember" to "Dear John" and "The Last Song," the author dominated the romantic drama space throughout the 2000s and early 2010s financially despite peaking at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, the heat on both Sparks and the romance genre at large cooled as studios and audiences turned to franchise blockbusters — his last theatrical effort was 2016's "The Choice," which made just over $20 million.

But put all that behind you, as Sparks prepares to make his triumphant return to cinemas with another formerly-critic-proof 2000s stalwart — M. Night Shyamalan. The novelist and filmmaker collaborated on "Remain," a 2025 supernatural romantic thriller book that has been described by critics as "'The Notebook" meets 'The Sixth Sense.'" This is one of those rare cases where the line between adaptation and original work gets a little blurred, though. While Sparks' novel came out first, it was written after Shyamalan showed him a screenplay based on the story they developed together. As such, Sparks will seemingly share a story credit with Shyamalan on the upcoming film version of "Remain" rather than receiving a "Based on the novel by" credit.

That being said, "Remain" was published by Random House in 2025 to positive reviews, months after the film version reportedly wrapped production. Shyamalan has even said that the Jake Gyllenhaal-starrer was overwhelmingly praised by test audiences (more than any film in his career, apparently). Distributor Warner Bros. has delayed the movie's release to February 2027, eyeing a Valentine's Day window.

Last, and far from least, we have "Sunrise on the Reaping," the latest (and perhaps even the greatest) entry in the enduring "Hunger Games" franchise. Even if longtime studio partners Lionsgate hadn't announced a feature film adaptation almost immediately after author Suzanne Collins announced the book was being written, we would have been foolish not to expect this exact outcome. Collins' original trilogy of novels and the four films they inspired turned "The Hunger Games" into one of most popular and profitable young adult multimedia properties of all time, really only comparable in scale and impact to "Twilight" and "Harry Potter." Hence, three years after Collins revived the brand for the 2020 prequel novel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes," Lionsgate produced an ambitious, mostly successful movie adaptation that grossed over $300 million worldwide.

With "Remain" pushed to 2027, "Sunrise on the Reaping" is slated to have the quickest book-to-film journey of any novel listed here. Director Francis Lawrence (who's been directing the "Hunger Games" movies since 2013) has potentially already delivered the finished product to Lionsgate, which in turn will release the feature worldwide in November 2026. The original novel drew praise from longtime "Hunger Games" fans, but it was noted for its oppressively dour tone, even compared to Collins' other books. Its story follows a young Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada of "We Were Liars," with Woody Harrelson having played the older Haymitch in the previous "Hunger Games" films) as he fights to survive a Hunger Game consisting of twice the number of competing victims. The movie's star-studded cast also includes heavy-hitters like Jesse Plemons, Elle Fanning, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, and Maya Hawke. You can watch the "Sunrise on the Reaping" trailer right here.