IP Picks🔎: 'Back to the Future' As a Tragic Thriller
âž• A deep-sea treasure hunt and a fresh take on Jackie O.
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along.
Giddy-up! The news that former Legendary Entertainment CEO Thomas Tull's new company, Teton Ridge, picked up the rights to the late Larry McMurtry's Western series Lonesome Dove caught my attention. Mainly because of the way it highlights several trends at once. The famed Last Picture Show author’s 1985 novel, which follows two retired Texas Rangers in the 1870s, won the Pulitzer and was adapted into a celebrated 1989 miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall. The two prequels and one sequel in the four-book oater saga were also adapted into less successful minis in the ‘90s and early aughts. (A fourth series — 1993's Return to Lonesome Dove — is a direct sequel to the original mini but not scripted by McMurtry and not canonical.)
This one announcement take in not only the recent revival in Westerns (think everything from Yellowstone to Horizon to American Primeval to the just-announced Little House reboot) but the boom in '70s-'90s backlist titles and the monetizing of literary estates. I'm guessing Tull looked at the success of the sprawling Yellowstone franchise and thought, "Hmm, I can do that with Lonesome Dove!"
Thorny Problem: There was another, arguably even bigger news item on the adaptation front this week: Official word that Hulu’s planned adaptation of Sarah J. Maas’ romantasy hit A Court of Thorns and Roses was dead. The news follows a report from last year claiming that the project was on life support and was not being shopped elsewhere by Disney. That failure most likely reflects both external factors — a pandemic-related slowdown, producer/writer Ronald Moore signing an overall deal with Sony — and the caution that I’ve been hearing from some about how romantasy titles make the leap from page to screen.
On the plus side, Variety reports that the rights to ACOTAR are set to expire soon and that Maas is interested reselling them. What happens next will be an interesting test for the red-hot genre. After all, ACOTAR is one of its most high-profile success stories and the rights will be returning to a marketplace that’s hotter now than it was the first time around.
On to this week’s picks, which include a fresh spin on time travel and a captivating YA adventure. The full lineup:
A sci-fi time-travel thriller with elements of Back to the Future and Manifest
A dark-academia thriller about two students on a quest to rescue their mentor
A YA thriller about a group of friends, a hunt for buried treasure and some magical creatures
An emotional drama about the strained relationship between a gay son and his mother and the very famous figure (no spoilers here!) who brings them together
A true-crime drama about a Ponzi scheme in the art world
