IP Picks🔎: Escapist Gems for the Moment

➕ A rom-com on the run, the real-life murder behind the 'The Scarlet Letter' and more

ACTION ROM-COM REDUX Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in this year’s big-screen update of the 1980s TV series The Fall Guy. (Universal Studios)

Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along.

This week's picks reminded me of why I fell in love with books, movies and TV in the first place. I've never lost the excitement that comes with being transported to somewhere different by a good story and this week offers a range of worlds to escape into from an action-packed rom-com, a historical true-crime mystery and a twisty spy thriller. They’re all very different, but they have one thing in common — they allow you to lose yourself in another world. Collectively, these picks reminded me why I fell in love with books, movies and TV in the first place. But before I get too schmaltzy, let's get into it. After all, the No. 1 rule of good writing is “show, don’t tell!”

But first, let me quickly highlight a couple of stories that are worth your attention:

• 'Tis the season for annual prizes and "Best of" lists. Already? Yup, already. The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize (historically just so-so for optionable material) was announced this week, as was Amazon's list of the Top 20 Books of the Year. As more year-end lists drop, I’ll pull together a list of the most optionable titles among them as a bonus to my regular picks. Stay tuned.

• The lawsuit between the Crichton Estate and Warner Bros. over the forthcoming Max show, The Pitt, and whether it’s essentially a repackaged ER sequel, raises some interesting legal issues from an IP perspective. Michael Crichton's widow and the executor of his estate, Sherri Crichton, initially filed the suit back in August. But things heated up again this week when WB responded by filing a motion to have the suit dismissed. On Tuesday, Crichton gave an interview to Deadline. If nothing else, grab some popcorn — the back-and-forth between the two parties is entertaining. But there are also substantive legal and ethical issues here that are worth pondering: How derivative does something have to be to cross the line into infringement? What compensation — and credit — does an original creator deserve for a derivative work? How beholden should studios be to creators when they try to exploit catalog IP?

  Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. From a legal standpoint, a lot depends on the specifics of the original contracts. But it may be worth asking what you would want for yourself in this situation — and what’s fair for both sides. Cases like this will continue to pop up as long as Hollywood continues to mine existing IP for new shows. In other words, forever.

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This week’s picks include a variety of fun, escapist fare, plus a terrific true-crime case and a gripping spy thriller. There’s something here for everyone.

The full lineup:

• An action rom-com that finds an unlikely pair — she’s a professor, he’s a fixer — on the run for a murder they didn’t commit

• A domestic thriller that chronicles the death of a teenage girl two decades ago, and the now grown-up woman whose original testimony is now being questioned

• A spy thriller that feels like Slow Horses meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

• A mystery/rom-com about a murder at a destination wedding and the strange duo who team up to solve it

• An investigative procedural about the centuries-old murder that inspired The Scarlet Letter and the podcaster trying to get to the bottom of the case in the present

BOOKS I LIKE (current)

Action-Adventure/Rom-Com