Looking Forward: TV and Movie Adaptations Coming out in 2023!

One of the (few) joys of the mind-numbing array of streaming platforms is that everyone seems to be looking for the next great adaptation, and a lot of great books are being made into TV shows or movies.

There have been endless adaptations over the last few years, including Ann Cleeves murder mysteries, new and glossy Agatha Christie renditions, great space operas like The Expanse and literary classics like Pachinko, Kindred or Station Eleven. I think it is fair to say that some of these are wonderful additions to their worlds, and some of them are….not.

I’m not necessarily an adaptation lover in general. For me to want to watch a show, I need to feel like there is something I would get from a well crafted visual interpretation that would allow me to have a better understanding of the story and it’s setting. Often, this is because a book or story is set in a world I am unfamiliar with and seeing it and hearing the specific pronunciations or languages makes it feel real.

I felt like this about Crazy Rich Asians, where the luxury described was truly more lavish than anything I could picture, and with the Ann Cleeves Shetland series, where the islands, accents and locations added richness and depth. The way I see it, a good adaptation makes you want to return to the book, and makes the experience of reading it a second time more richer and more vivid.

Today, I am going to share some of the adaptations that should be (hopefully!) coming out this year. A few of these have release dates, but not all have trailers out yet, which is unfortunate. I tried to keep the list to shows and movies that have already wrapped production, in the hopes that they will actually come out this year, but there are quite a few more in the works!

I also made a couple specific exclusions. Notably, two big buzzy adaptations being released this year are English language versions of translated books that have already been adapted in their original language. This drive to constantly remake things for an English speaking, specifically American, audience is something I find distasteful, and I’m not going to be sharing these, despite the fact that they may star A-List actors or be produced by people with intense, fandom-inspiring TV shows under their belts.

TV Shows

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Prime Video

This adaptation makes SO much sense. Reid actually has two novels being adapted into TV shows right now, but this is her best book (in my opinion), and the adaptation I am the most excited to see. Daisy Jones & The Six is a fictional oral history about a Fleetwood Mac-esque band. It is almost perfect in so many ways. My biggest frustration with it was that we couldn’t hear the music, which speaks to why this is an obvious adaptation.

I love that they seem to have kept the oral history framing, and the trailer is interesting and compelling enough that I look forward to watching this when it comes out in March.

However, one of the things I loved so much about this book was that it didn’t go where I expected it to go, and it felt more complicated and “real life” than I thought it would be at the outset. I do fear that the TV world might not understand the beauty in subtlety here and pull it in a more stereotypical direction, but I will go into it hoping otherwise.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen – HBO

The Sympathizer book won the Pulitzer Prize, and has been a book I have been wanting to read for a while. The book itself is pitched as a thriller/satire featuring a French-Vietnamese spy who ultimately ends up exiled in the United States after the Vietnam War.

The show was in production last November, filming in Los Angeles and Thailand, and so hopefully we may see more about it soon. This one is both interesting and a little strange, especially when it comes to the casting. The protagonists were cast using lesser known actors of Vietnamese descent, which is a really intriguing move, and Nguyen himself is a producer on the show, which is great.

However, on the flip side, Robert Downey Jr is playing not just one, but multiple antagonists, which is where I start to get slightly terrified. If it is played to flip the stereotype that people of other ethnicities all look the same, I could be into it. However, if it is only a showcase for him to chew the scenery, it is going to get old fast.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – Netflix

I am honestly quite excited to see what they do this this book. It has been years since I read this book, which managed to transcend the World War 2-ness of the plot with truly interesting characters and a great setting on a walled island town in France.

This is set to be released as a 4 part limited series sometime this year, and I am hopeful that the format and the casting allows this to truly shine, as this is a great example of a book that is so visual and atmospheric that a visual version could really make the story sing in a way that I am intrigued by.

In fact, I hope that this version possibly trades some of Doerr’s beautiful but lengthy descriptions for a little more agency on the part of the blind french teenager Marie-Laure, who is going to be played by an actress who is legally blind, which is a really great casting decision that makes me more interested to watch!

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Movies

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume – Theatres (Lionsgate)

I am going to say this to start with. I was not a Judy Blume fan. It was just too real for me, and stories about normal kids going to school were a tough sell when I was a kid. I was a “reading as escape” kid and my favorites were historical fiction and fantasy, not books that mirrored what I already had to deal with in my day to day life.

That being said, this adaptation is being mentioned because it falls into a camp that I like to think of as “millennial nostalgia” media. This includes reboots and interpretations of 90s sitcoms (everything from that 70s show to Fresh Prince of Bel Air) and the Lena Dunham adaptation of Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman that came out last year (loved the book, the movie was fine).

I’m more intrigued by how my generation both has a huge amount of nostalgia for our childhood and the media we consumed but also feels the need to constantly rewrite and update it to be more socially progressive. As more and more millennial take the producing and directing roles in entertainment, these projects seem to be everywhere, and I’m curious about how this movie, which comes out in theaters in April, will do on that front.

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson – Theatres (Sony)

I think I was saying something about “millennial nostalgia”? The funniest thing about this for me is that it shows that children’s movies are really for adults. I don’t know if any family I know has this book in their children’s book rotation, but I am sure most of the parents are familiar with it.

Personally, I love this book, although, similar to Polar Express, I just don’t really see how it makes a good live action movie. This is one I don’t think I will be buying a movie ticket to see, but I am absolutely going to be tracking when it comes out in June.

For further enjoyment, it is also being made into a musical (this is the picture above), which completely baffles and intrigues me in equal parts.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston – Amazon

One of the benefits of the Bridgerton phenomenon is that people started looking at romance books as the basis for rom-com movie adaptations. With simple, more “cinematic” plots, these books often make for great adaptations, and I am not mad about this.

This is not just any rom-com, but it is one that centers a young gay couple (the son of the US president and the crown prince of England), and with the amount of buzz it is getting, it is exciting to see non-traditional romances get the same movie treatment!

Production wrapped at the end of last summer, so it seems like this is one that should make it out sometime in 2023.

A Haunting in Venice/Halloween Party by Agatha Christie – Theatres (20th Century Studios)

The Kenneth Branagh Poirot films, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile are the apex of the glossy Agatha Christie adaptations that have come out in the past few years. I actually really dislike Branagh’s interpretation of Poirot (the only Poirot worth watching is David Suchet), but I do appreciate the films for their sheer extravagance and beauty and have enjoyed watching them despite my frustrations with how Poirot is depicted.

I understand by Branagh wants to continue exploring grand vistas with a Venice-based movie (although I am absolutely more interested in what he would do with a book like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), and the Halloween Party plot does give him a chance to introduce one of my favorite side characters, the mystery author Ariadne Oliver, who should be really fun to see on screen.

One of the fun things about these ensemble cast mysteries is that you get to see A-list actors having fun doing something a little less serious, and I do enjoy that piece of it as well. This cast includes Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh, so it’s looking fun!

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What are you most excited about on this list?