Netflix’s ‘Punisher’ writer Steve Lightfoot will also develop ‘The String Diary’ series.
Image via Hachette Book Group
The Big Picture
Showrunner Steve Lightfoot is developing TV adaptation of
The String Diaries
.
Vampirates
is currently in development with RubyRock Pictures.
These adaptations aim to give overlooked novels new life, mirroring the success of Netflix’s
Heartstopper
.
A big week for the showrunner of Netflix’s Punisher series just got even more exciting. After it was previously announced that Steve Lightfoot would helm the live-action Spider-Man Noir series featuring Nicolas Cage, the writer has officially found his next project. A new report from Deadline revealed that Lightfoot is working with Sony Pictures to develop a TV adaptation of The String Diaries, a supernatural thriller which was written by Stephen Lloyd Jones. RubyRock Pictures, who is working with Netflix to produce the upcoming Geek Girl series featuring House of the Dragon star Emily Carey, is attached to produce the project.
In addition to The String Diaries adaptation, Zoë Rocha of RubyRock pictures also revealed that they are working on another adaptation of Justin Somper’s Vampirates book series. There have been six books published in the series between 2005 and 2011 that follow twins who are separated from each other and land on two entirely different ships. Rocha says both The String Diaries and Vampirates adaptations are part of RubyRock’s mission to give novels that “slipped through the cracks 5–10 years ago” the live-action adaptations that their passionate fan bases deserve. Rocha also spoke about the upcoming Geek Girl series, comparing it to another incredibly successful Netflix love story, Heartstopper:
“When [Netflix] made Heartstopper they had the pure intent of saying ‘This is a thing we are doing in out bubble’ and then it caught the zeitgeist. We wanted that same feeling of creating something in a little bubble of its own and then seeing what happens.”
Great Book Adaptations Are Already Here and More Are Coming
It’s a great time to be a fan of live-action book adaptations. Apple TV+ — who previously partner with Lightfoot on the series Shantaram, an action adventure crime drama starring Charlie Hunnam — is in the midst of airing Dark Matter, a sci-fi series based on the novel of the same name by Blake Crouch. The series stars Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly and follows Jason, a physics professor who is kidnapped one night and wakes up to realize his life isn’t at all as he remembers. Also on the horizon is a film adaptation of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling, a story about a man who wakes up on a spaceship alone, light tears away from earth, only to realize the entire fate of the human race is in his hands.
Neither The String Diaries nor Vampirates adaptations have an official release date, but all ten episodes of Geek Girl release on Netflix on May 30. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates and check out Lightfoot’s previous work in The Punisher, now streaming on Disney+.
The Punisher
After taking revenge on those who murdered his family, aimless Marine veteran Frank Castle finds a new meaning in life as a vigilante known as “The Punisher.”
WATCH ON DISNEY+