This Week in Page to Screen: Brave New World, Syfy, Amy Schumer, and More

First off, we’ve got Steven Spielberg, already hard at work on the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG, which is all set to start filming on Faroe Islands in July. But in addition to that and the upcoming Ready Player One movie, Spielberg is behind another major conversion: the TV adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  Spielberg’s Amblin Television will be producing a serial version of Huxley’s futuristic classic for Syfy, with Les Bohem writing the script.

Meanwhile the trailer is out for one of SyFy’s other page-to-screen projects, The Magicians. The show, like the books, will follow Quentin Coldwater as he takes up study at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. And it looks…good? You’ve got to love the “DO SOME GODDAMN MAGIC!” line. The show stars Jason Ralph as Quentin, and it’s unclear when exactly it will premiere. Watch the trailer here.

And speaking of trailers, the first trailer for Maze Runner: the Scorch Trials is here, too. The second film in the adaptation of James Dashner’s Maze Runner series, the movie follows a group of postapocalyptic children after they emerge from the Maze and find themselves in Phase Two of a mysterious, terrible program: the Scorch. It stars Teen Wolf‘s Dylan O’Brian and a handful of other attractive people and will hit theaters September 9. The third film is expected to be released in 2017.

John Green, whose YA novel Paper Towns is headed to a big screen near you on July 24, would like to remind his fans he is NOT in charge of casting for the adaptation of Looking for Alaska. Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, the screenwriting duo behind The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns, are currently working on the script…and hopefully taking into account Green’s one suggestion: cast Amy Schumer in every role. Yes, please.

And Jack Reacher fans will be happy to hear the series is getting a sequel, once again starring Tom Cruise in the titular role. The script will be written by Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, and will be based on Lee Child’s Never Go Back.

In other page-to-screen news, David Puttnam, the man behind Chariots of Fire, is returning to filmmaking after a 15-year break with an adaption of Don’t Trust, Don’t Fear, Don’t Beg. Written by Ben Stewart, the book follows the story of 3o Greenpeace members who face 15 years in Russian prison after protesting drilling in the Arctic. Helping write the script is one of our favorite British actresses, Emma Thompson.
{ean7}}And finally, director Todd Haynes is set to adapt Wonderstruck, the second children’s book from Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Wonderstruck follows two children, Ben and Rose, set fifty years apart, as they seek to escape their lives and make the journey to New York. No timeline has been announced, but casting is rumored to be in the works for the project.