From Jane Austen to Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck, Hollywood is increasingly looking to the literary canon for its next big screen stories. The latest wave of adaptations is reviving familiar books for new audiences — and, in some cases, sending viewers back to the originals.
A new generation discovers old stories
A caterpillar crawling across a finger opens Georgia Oakley’s new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. It is a fitting image for a story built around seemingly small events: a glance, a misunderstanding, an unspoken feeling.
Austen’s ability to turn such intimate moments into compelling drama has kept her novels alive for generations. Now Sense and Sensibility is joining a growing list of classics returning to the screen.
A new Pride and Prejudice is scheduled for Netflix in December, while recent adaptations have included Wuthering Heights, The Odyssey and Frankenstein. Upcoming projects include East of Eden, A Tale of Two Cities and a new A Christmas Carol starring Johnny Depp.
The trend raises an obvious question: why are film and television companies so interested in centuries-old stories at a time when technology, artificial intelligence and new forms of entertainment are transforming popular culture?
Part of the answer may be that classic literature offers something increasingly unusual: stories stripped down to fundamental human concerns such as love, money, ambition, family and betrayal.
Familiar stories, rewritten for the present
The new Sense and Sensibility, released in Britain on September 25 and due in the US in October, inevitably exists in the shadow of the much-loved 1995 adaptation starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.
This time, Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Elinor Dashwood, the reserved sister whose romantic feelings remain largely hidden, while Esmé Creed-Miles plays the more openly passionate Marianne.
The new film changes the atmosphere as well as the setting. Instead of the pastoral landscapes associated with earlier versions, it uses rugged moorland, while the tone is more serious and less overtly satirical.
For screenwriter Andrew Davies, whose credits include the famous 1995 Pride and Prejudice, some of Austen’s most important moments are the ones in which almost nothing is said. The challenge for actors is to communicate emotions that the novels themselves explore largely through interior thought.
The new adaptation puts particular emphasis on the relationship between the Dashwood sisters, reflecting a modern audience less inclined to view romance as the central concern of women’s lives.
That kind of adjustment is increasingly common. Zoe Kazan’s upcoming East of Eden, for example, expands on material that Elia Kazan’s 1955 film left out. The seven-part Netflix series covers the full scope of John Steinbeck’s novel and restores Lee, a Chinese-American character who was omitted from the earlier film.
It also gives a new interpretation to Cathy, the novel’s deeply destructive character. Rather than presenting her simply as an embodiment of evil, the series explores her abusive past and portrays her as a more complicated and vulnerable figure.
Such changes illustrate why adaptations can remain relevant even when their source material is more than a century old. They do not simply reproduce old stories; they reinterpret them through the concerns of a different era.
Why streaming platforms love the classics
There is also a straightforward commercial reason for Hollywood’s literary obsession.
Film and television companies face enormous risks when investing in original stories. A well-known novel comes with an existing audience, an established narrative and a built-in marketing advantage.
According to Parrot Analytics, titles based on books have generated 3.4 times the global demand of the average title so far this year.
Classic authors also provide something modern original productions cannot easily manufacture: a cultural conversation that begins before the cameras start rolling. Readers already have opinions about how characters should look, how stories should be interpreted and which scenes must survive the transition to screen.
That can make adaptations a safer investment — but it also creates considerable pressure.
A production that follows its source too closely can feel lifeless. One that changes too much risks alienating readers.
Louise Willder, author of The Book Was Better, has highlighted some of the more extreme examples of filmmakers altering literary works. Adaptations have added sex, violence, happy endings and even entirely new settings or characters in attempts to make old stories fit contemporary tastes.
The challenge is to determine which elements of a novel remain essential and which can be changed.
The classics are finding new readers too
There is an apparent contradiction at the heart of the trend.
Reading for pleasure has been declining, while publishers, educators and researchers have raised concerns about the shrinking role of serious fiction in people’s lives. Yet books being adapted for film and television are sometimes experiencing a revival.
Penguin Classics says sales of The Odyssey in Britain rose by 265% in 2026, while sales in India increased by 599%. In the United States, sales have quadrupled, according to Circana BookScan.
Wuthering Heights also reached the top of the British bestseller list, roughly 180 years after Emily Brontë published the novel.
The renewed interest is not entirely driven by Hollywood. Young readers are increasingly encountering classic authors through social media, where recommendations and discussions can send older books back into the cultural spotlight.
Film adaptations can amplify that effect.
Some viewers may use movies as substitutes for reading, particularly when they encounter classics through school. An English examination report, for instance, noted students making references to guns and petrol stations when discussing Romeo and Juliet, apparently reflecting their familiarity with the Leonardo DiCaprio film rather than Shakespeare’s original setting.
But there is another group: viewers who watch the film and then pick up the book.
Old stories, new anxieties
The popularity of period dramas may also reflect something deeper than Hollywood economics.
In a culture dominated by smartphones, social media and AI, the worlds of Austen and Dickens can feel strangely distant — and therefore attractive.
Netflix executive Jinny Howe describes period settings as “exotic” in an increasingly high-speed, high-tech world. Andrew Davies similarly argues that when people feel threatened by huge forces such as climate change or AI, they may turn toward familiar stories for comfort.
The appeal of these novels lies partly in their narrowness. Austen does not need wars, technological revolutions or spectacular effects to create drama. A conversation, a marriage proposal or a family financial crisis can carry enormous emotional weight.
That simplicity can make the stories feel both old-fashioned and surprisingly contemporary.
The best adaptations, then, are not necessarily those that reproduce the original word for word. They are the ones that identify what made the book matter in the first place and find a way to make that element speak to a new audience.
Classic novels may be changing as they move from page to screen. But the renewed attention to the books themselves suggests that the relationship works in both directions.
Hollywood may be borrowing from the literary canon because familiar stories are commercially useful. In the process, however, it may also be introducing those stories to readers who might never otherwise have opened the books.
Be First to Comment