This Week in Page to Screen: Fifty Shades, the Little Prince, and a Whole Lot of YA

You’ve probably heard by now that director Sam Taylor-Wood and screenwriter Kelly Marcel jumped ship after the release of the first Fifty Shades installment, leading to much speculation that there might not be an adaption of the second and third books. But not to worry, fans, because the franchise has already acquired a new writer for Fifty Shades Darker: Niall Leonard, E.L. James’ husband. Meanwhile, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan are looking for a pay raise before getting back on board.

Fifty Shades isn’t the only book-to-film adaptation with a new screenwriter: Universal just hired a screenwriting team for Gayle Forman’s Just One Day. Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, the screenwriting duo who recently adapted Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler’s The Future of Us, will be handling the project, Forman’s second novel-turned-movie. Just One Day (and it’s accompanying novel, Just One Year) follows the changes that one romantic, adventurous, inspiring day in Paris can bring (especially when said day is spent with a handsome actor named Willem).

In other YA news, film rights to Kiera Cass’s The Selection have been bought by Warner Bros., which hired Katie Lovejoy to adapt the novel (Lovejoy is the scriptwriting genius behind Black List). The Selection, the first book in Cass’s series, is about America Singer, a regular girl who’s thrown into a competition to marry her prince—despite the fact that she’s in love with someone else. Meanwhile, the fourth book in The Selection series, The Heir, is coming out May 5.

With the release of Insurgent, the second film in Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, rumors about the upcoming Allegiant movies (the final book is getting split into two parts) are circling. While it has yet to be confirmed, all signs point to Aaron Eckhart playing David, Tris’s nemesis in the third and fourth films. In response to fans’ concern that the final films are going to stray from the book’s bittersweet ending, Theo James would like to assure everyone there’s no need to worry—even though Insurgent wandered away from the source material, Allegiant is sticking pretty close to the plot.

Blake Crouch, however, has no such expectations about the television adaptation of his Wayward Pines books.  The series follows Ethan Burke, a secret service agent on a mission to locate two fellow agents who seem to have gotten lost in a small Idaho town. It was recently transformed into a TV show by M. Night Shyamalan (which Crouch says is “a dream come true”), but Crouch readily admits he hopes the show won’t stick too closely to his novels. Wayward Pines premieres on Fox on May 14.

And finally, in case you haven’t had enough feelings today, do yourself a favor and watch the second trailer for The Little Prince movie. If you, like me, were a bit skeptical about the computer-animated adaptation of this beautiful classic, there’s a 98% chance this trailer will change your mind. The story-within-a-story setup looks promising, and the animation style is absolutely enchanting—and no, I’m definitely not crying at all. The movie will be premiering at Cannes this May before widespread release in July.
What page-to-screen adaptations are you excited about?