IP Picks🔎: The Inspiring Post-'Hoosiers' Sports Drama
âž• A wilderness thriller and a '40s-set detective/romance romp
Hello, 2024! (done in my best — though still not very good — Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam voice). Thanks for starting the new year with The Optionist.
But before we turn to 2024, a couple items of note that look back on last year. There's some interesting stuff in the list of top-selling new books from Bookscan's data on the top 200 overall sellers of the year compiled by Publishers Lunch.
Right off the bat, a reminder that about 70 percent of book sales come from the backlist — titles more than a year old. I've been thinking about that number a lot in relationship to what's going in Hollywood. The profits from old material are central to both publishing and Hollywood. Sure, the new stuff is sexy and a big hit can goose profits in any one year, but the reliable sales (or viewings) of old stuff is the key. If either industry depended on just the big swings of the new stuff, they'd be in trouble. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of what’s going on in streaming and the decision by some studios with streaming services to restart licensing library content to competitors, and how much attention we pay to what’s new versus how much old stuff — the backlist for publishers, library content for studios — contributes to the bottom line.
But I digress from the list. First, there's the big bump that adaptations give sales. Killers of the Flower Moon, Lesson in Chemistry and Daisy Jones and the Six all made the top 200, despite not being new in 2023 (and having already each spent lots of time on the bestseller list). For authors, as I've said before, the money from Hollywood is only part of the benefit to getting their work adapted. Increased book sales, regardless of how well the TV show/movie performs, can provide a nice chunk of change to authors.
Second, there's the halo effect. Hit the bestseller list with one book and you're likely to find one of your older books on it as well. David Grann (Killers) and Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones) got the bump, as did Rebecca Yarros, who nabbed two spots in top 10 for her breakout hit Empyrean series (under development at Amazon for TV), which debuted this year.
But the queen of this is Colleen Hoover, who had two books in the top 20 for new books (Heart Bones and Never Never) and an astonishing 17 (!!!) in the overall top 200. Hoover was the publishing sales story of 2023. The adaptation of her best-known book, It Ends with Us, which alone has sold more than 4 million copies and has generated more than a billion TikTok tags, hits theaters on Feb. 9, with Blake Lively playing Lily, the female lead, and Justin Baldini (also directing) and Brendan Sklenar as the romantic rivals vying for her affection.
I'm surprised that It Ends with Us wasn't cited in any of the 2024 box office previews I looked at (like Deadline's list of 18 movies that could gross $100 million). I think people are sleeping on this — it could be a surprise hit. Have we not learned anything from The Notebook and Fifty Shades of Grey? Her fan base is passionate. I think a lot of them will turn out the first weekend and given the sparse release calendar it could chug along for a few weeks. Women are gonna drag their partners to this ahead of the Super Bowl that Sunday and Valentine's Day later in the week.
One surprising — and concerning thing — is there's no trailer yet (though there are many, many fan-made trailers. What’s up with this, Sony?) There’s also been some backlash from fans over the aging-up of the characters from their 20s to their 30s, which Hoover addressed in an interview with Jenna Bush Hager.
Still, I'm gonna predict that It Ends with Us ends up over-performing expectations. And given what I imagine is a fairly modest budget, I bet it'll be profitable for Sony. (I was gonna be more bold, but a back-and-forth with The Wakeup’s Sean McNulty playing devil’s advocate and making some good points — Super Bowl, cast, trailer — has me tempering my enthusiasm a little.)
One last data point on the screen bump for books: Publishers Weekly notes that in the last week or so of December, Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat sold more than 33K copies (netting Brown a sweet $50K or so in royalties), despite the movie, which dropped on Christmas, getting mixed reviews from critics (but an A CinemaScore from viewers). That's quite an accomplishment considering Boys is (a) a decade old, and (b) has been selling steady that whole time.
Also, if you haven’t seen it, you should read this stellar New Yorker profile on screenwriter Scott Frank. The story of who Frank is and the arc of his career, especially how his work as a script doctor might’ve derailed his own original projects, is interesting, but I really liked the insights about scriptwriting sprinkled throughout. Frank talks about what he looks for in a script he’s asked to fix, the importance of reading in making him a better writer, the trickiness in an adapting an author like Elmore Leonard and his pursuit of older pulp fiction for adaptation.Â
Lastly, this Boston Globe article about the new Jon Cryer series Extended Family, which follows a divorced couple who rotate in and out of the family home where the kids stay full time, rather than shuttling them between homes, cracked me up. It's based on the real-life story of Boston Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck, his second wife, Emilia Fazzalari and her ex husband. Long story short: How do you get your life made into a TV series? Become pals with another local sports owner, in this case, Tom Werner of the Red Sox, who also happens to be a huge TV producer, and keep pitching him funny stories about your life until he agrees to develop it as a sitcom. This is, of course, a strategy that can be universally employed by anyone.
On to this week’s picks, which an amazing true story that takes place after Hoosiers, an inspirational tale of a teen darts champion and a pair of domestic thrillers:
A period sports drama about a high-school basketball team.
A relationship drama/thriller set in the Idaho backcountry.
A Mr. and Mrs. Smith-like period procedural featuring two ex-spies/lovers who reunite to solve a murder.
A real-life tale, part inspirational and part comedy, about a teen darts prodigy.
A true-crime grift story with an interesting Black Lives Matter and DEI twist.
