Books have long served as inspiration for TV and film, from 1939’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind to the BBC’s popular 1995 imagining of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
The interest in books to adapt for TV and film has only grown, with some of the best shows of the past few years - from The Handmaid’s Tale to Big Little Lies, His Dark Materials and Noughts and Crosses - all based on books (by Margaret Atwood, Liane Moriarty, Philip Pullman and Malorie Blackman respectively).
The TV and film industries are looking for great stories to tell, so it’s no surprise that books are such an attractive proposition. But not all books will translate to the screen, and those that do may take years, or even decades, of development.