2018 is filled with a melange of book to movie adaptations based on some of the most gruelling, captivating and inspiring works by authors. Ranging from tales of love amidst terror to the portrayal of a futuristic dystopian world devoid of books to an otherwise intelligent girl’s journey battling mental illness, the year is lined up with releases that possess the ability to ineffably stir our impatience.
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
A disease kills 98% of America's children leaving the surviving 2% to mysteriously develop powerful new abilities. Being declared a threat by the government, they are placed in internment camps. Ruby is a 16-year-old girl who is thought to be one of the most powerful young people anyone has encountered. She escapes her camp and joins a group of other runaway teens who are seeking a safe haven away from the government. Becoming a family and finding the adults in power have betrayed them, they realize they must stop running and start a resistance. Together they use their powers to take back control of their future.
Release date: September 14, 2018
The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz
She is the girl with the dragon tattoo—a genius hacker and uncompromising misfit. He is a crusading journalist whose championing of the truth often brings him to the brink of prosecution.
Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female hacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the centre of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it . . .
Release date: October 19, 2018
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is an upcoming fantasy drama film. it is the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016). It will serve as the second film instalment in the Fantastic Beasts film series.
The powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) has been captured by MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), with the help of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). But, making good on his threat, Grindelwald escapes custody and has set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda: to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings. In an effort to thwart Grindelwald's plans, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.
Release date: November 16, 2018
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy reside in Concord, Massachusetts, with their beloved mother while their father is stationed far away as an army chaplain. Although destitute, they are admired greatly in their neighbourhood for their charitable work. The girls find joy in the little things such as performing plays and writing sketches. They embody the epitome of a loving family and each daughter plays a significant part in it. Little Women is not only a family drama that validates virtue over wealth but also depicts women escaping a life of gender constraints. It also unveils the journey of these young girls into womanhood.
Release date: TBD in 2018
Ophelia by Lisa Klein
Ophelia’s story emanates from the Shakespearean play Hamlet. In this novel, Ophelia is a rowdy, motherless girl, she grows up at Elsinore Castle to become the queen's most trusted lady-in-waiting. She is hungry for knowledge and witty as well as beautiful, Ophelia learns the ways of power in a court where nothing is as it seems. When she catches the attention of the captivating, dark-haired Prince Hamlet, their love blossoms in secret. But bloody deeds soon turn Denmark into a place of madness, and Ophelia's happiness is shattered. Ultimately, she must choose between her love for Hamlet and her own life. In desperation, Ophelia devises a treacherous plan to escape from Elsinore forever . . . with one very dangerous secret.
Release date: TBD in 2018
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury, published in 1953. The novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and 'firemen' burn any that are found. The book's tagline explains the title: Fahrenheit 451 – the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns...
A fireman named Guy Montag is the lead character in the book.In his world, television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction. His job is to destroy the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never regrets the ruin his actions cause, returning each day to his dreary life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day in front of the television. But then he meets an eccentric young neighbour, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
Release date: TBD in 2018 on HBO
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath’s shocking, realistic, and an intensely emotional novel about is a woman battling her mental illness. Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly moves under the pall of depression. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that her insanity feels palpably real. A deep insight into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
Release date: TBD in 2018
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb…
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends — and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society — born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members have discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island — boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Release date: TBD in 2018
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Set in an unspecified South American country, the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honour of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast. In order to get Hosokawa to invest in the country, famous American soprano Roxane Coss performs at the party.
Near the end of the party, members of a terrorist organization break into the house looking for the President. When it is discovered that the President did not attend the party, the terrorist group decides to take the entire party hostage. After determining they have too many hostages, the terrorists decide to release all of the hostages except those they deem most likely to return a large ransom.
Two major romantic relationships develop as the standoff drags on and serve as the backdrop to the rest of the story.
Bel Canto is a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
Release date: TBD in 2018
Raazi
Raazi is period espionage thriller film directed by Meghna Gulzar and produced by Karan Johar. It features Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal in lead roles. Raazi is an adaptation of Harinder Sikka’s popular novel Calling Sehmat, about a Kashmiri spy married to a Pakistani man during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Sehmat, the said Kashmiri spy, devised unique ways in her quest to get closer to the top brass in Pakistan and provide the Indian intelligence with invaluable information during the war. She almost single-handedly torpedoed Pakistan's war plans through indefinable courage, wit and determination and was responsible for saving lives of scores of Indian soldiers.
Release Date: May 2018
Thugs of Hindostan
Thugs of Hindostan is an action-adventure film about the life of the mob in India before independence. The movie is directed by Vijay Acharya. The movie will feature Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh. The film is based on 19th-century novel Confession of a Thug. In the course of a confession to a white sahib, the imprisoned Ameer Ali recounts his life as a devoted follower of Thuggee, a secret religious cult practising ritual mass murder and robbery. Taylor uncovered evidence of the crimes committed by bands of Thugs as a Superintendent of Police in India during the 1820s.
Release Date: Near Diwali 2018