EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is developing a movie based on best-selling first novel Nineteen Steps by Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things). Deadline has sources who say Brown is working on the project.
Netflix declined comment. But we hear that Brown will produce under her PCMA banner, with an eye to star. Four-time Oscar nominee Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything) is set to adapt the screenplay. Jonathan Eirich will produce for Rideback, with Nick Reynolds exec producing for the company at Millie Bobby Brown Developing Feature Adaptation Of Her Bestselling Debut Novel ‘Nineteen Steps’ For Netflix.
A New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller published by William Morrow in September 2023, Nineteen Steps is a WWII novel drawing on the experiences of Brown’s own grandmother. Written by Brown and Kathleen McGurl, the story follows Nellie Morris, an 18-year-old girl living in the East London neighborhood of Bethnal Green. Over the course of the book, Nellie navigates the challenges of wartime life, including the threat of bombings, rationing, and the emotional turmoil of being separated from loved ones, while charting a new romance with American airman Ray. At the historical core of the novel is the Bethnal Green Tube disaster, one of the worst civilian disasters in the UK during the war, where 173 people were killed in a crush as they sought shelter during an air raid at Millie Bobby Brown Developing Feature Adaptation Of Her Bestselling Debut Novel ‘Nineteen Steps’ For Netflix.
A homegrown Netflix talent with deep ties to the streamer, Brown broke out with her role of Eleven on the Duffer Brothers’ global phenomenon Stranger Things, which returns for its fifth and final season next year. Her work there has earned her two Emmy nominations and two SAG Award nominations for Female Actor in a Drama Series, along with a win and a pair of other noms from SAG as part of the ensemble at Millie Bobby Brown Developing Feature Adaptation Of Her Bestselling Debut Novel ‘Nineteen Steps’ For Netflix.
On the film side, Brown most recently starred in Damsel, a Netflix fantasy pic which ranks at No. 7 on the service’s Most Popular Movies list, with 138 million views to date. Also previously seen in Netflix’s highly popular Enola Holmes films, along with blockbusters Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong, her other big upcoming project is Netflix’s flick The Electric State from the Russo Brothers, which has her starring alongside Chris Pratt and is expected to premiere in March 2025, we’re told at Millie Bobby Brown Developing Feature Adaptation Of Her Bestselling Debut Novel ‘Nineteen Steps’ For Netflix.
Oscar-nominated for his work on The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour and The Two Popes, McCarten is also known for music biopics I Wanna Dance with Somebody and Bohemian Rhapsody on Whitney Houston and Freddie Mercury, respectively. Among the writer-producer’s other upcoming projects is The Collaboration, a film based on his own play, which examines the friendship between artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat at Millie Bobby Brown Developing Feature Adaptation Of Her Bestselling Debut Novel ‘Nineteen Steps’ For Netflix.
The film’s producer, Rideback, is now working on Disney’s upcoming Lilo & Stitch movie, which will be released in theaters this summer. Rideback is the producer of the successful global films Aladdin, which made over one billion dollars, and the new Haunted Mansion movie. Recall that renowned producer Dan Lin, who left in February to take over as Netflix’s top film post, started the company in 2007. Lin left the company, but Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich took over as co-CEOs, while Lin remained on the board of Rideback, the BIPOC content accelerator. Ascend at Nineteen Steps, Millie Bobby Brown’s best-selling debut novel, is being adapted into a feature film.
Brown is represented by WME and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; McCarten by CAA and Myman Greenspan Fox at Millie Bobby Brown Developing Feature Adaptation Of Her Bestselling Debut Novel ‘Nineteen Steps’ For Netflix.