IP Picksđ: 3 Flavors of Rom-Com; a Serial Killer; a 9/11 Thriller
â May Cobb, author of âThe Hunting Wivesâ, has a whole lot more IP
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along! I want to kick things off this week with some thoughts on the always-underappreciated value of midlist authors. Also, because Frankenstein projects seem to be all the rage at the moment (thanks to a pair of upcoming films from Guillermo del Toro and Maggie Gyllenhaal), I wanted to plug a previous Optionist selection I loved before we turn our attention to this weekâs picksâŠ
Order the Cobb: Based on the 2021 novel by May Cobb, The Hunting Wives has turned out to be the perfect mid-summer binge â the TV equivalent of a great beach read. Three weeks after it first dropped on Netflix, the racy series is still in the platformâs top-five shows. While thereâs been no official announcement about a second season (what are we waiting for?!), not surprisingly, the showâs success has sparked serious interest in the rest of the authorâs catalog â a quartet of female-centered thrillers set in and around Cobbâs native East Texas (except 2024âs The Hollywood Assistant), including 2023âs A Likeable Woman, an early Optionist pick. While deals are still to be closed, Cobbâs team is fielding multiple offers on all of her other books.
Cobbâs story reinforces the importance of midlist authors to the publishing and Hollywood ecosystems. Their decline, which Iâve written about multiple times before, should be of concern to everyone. After all, Cobb is exactly the kind of writer we need to be nurturing: A midlist seller, reliable performers a notch or two off the bestseller list. The Hunting Wives â about a group of wealthy, scheming Texas trad wives â wasnât an immediate success, but it did get strong reviews, won her a steady fan base and established her brand. Now, with the success of the Netflix show, that back catalog, a quartet of female-centered thrillers, is a super-valuable asset for Cobb, her publisher and Hollywood. But itâs only possible because Cobb was given time to grow as an author, which is less and less common in an industry chasing the quick hit of the next buzzy new thing. (If youâre curious about how an adaptation can change an authorâs life, read this great People profile of Cobb. The authorâs son has autism, and she was struggling to pay the bills for his care when The Hunting Wives went into production. Itâs such a feel-good story that it could almost be its own adaptation.)
Monster Mash: It was reported this week that Sebastian Stan had signed on to star in a new spin on Frankenstein from director Radu Jude. Titled Frankenstein in Romania, the project will feature Stan as both the doctor and the monster in a story set in the present day that updates the classic Mary Shelley tale with a present-day plot about a secret CIA prison.
If youâre keeping score at home, that makes three splashy Frankenstein films on tap. I donât know if the market is fully saturated at this point, but given that a quick IMDb search lists 4,030 Frankenstein-related titles over the years (just behind Draculaâs 4,156), Iâm guessing thereâs room for one more â which brings me to this Old West version of the tale (with a hint of steampunk) that was in The Optionist earlier this year. Iâm still really high on it. I loved the clever way it remixed the original story with classic cowboy film tropes and imbued the doomed love story at the center with real pathos.
đ This Week: âHate That I Love Youâ & other tales
On to this weekâs picks! Iâve got three variations on the classic enemies-to-lovers formula, including a really cute YA rom-com spin. (Check out The Ankler podcast this week about the surge in rom-com buying from Netflix, Amazon, etc.). If romance isnât your thing, we also have a fresh and darkly funny take on the serial killer psychological thriller and a propulsive art-world thriller set in the aftermath of 9/11.
The full lineup for paid subscribers:
đŒïž An early-aughts thriller about murder and fraud in the art world.
đ A drama about two editors competing for the same book that might be undone by #MeToo allegations.
đAn enemies-to-lovers rom-com that finds two professors pretending to be married to land a teaching position.
đ”đ”đż A charming YA rom-com about two teens kept apart by their feuding influencer grandmothers.
đȘ A psychological thriller with Dexter vibes about the daughter of a convicted serial killer who wonders if she can escape the shadow of her fatherâs bloody legacy.
