Romance author Emily Henry now has five of her most recent novels set to be adapted for the big and small screens. Henry went on a rom-com writing spree that began with Beach Read, which came out in the summer of 2020. She has published a book a year since then, with People We Meet on Vacation coming out in 2021, Book Lovers arriving in 2022, Happy Place released in 2023 and Funny Story hitting shelves this year.
Three of Henry’s books received adaptation optioning deals for films, with two of them attaching directors. Starting in 2022, multiple studios made the decision to adapt various Emily Henry books into movies. The Writers’ and Actors’ strikes likely delayed any moves in casting, but a fourth novel has just been optioned by Jennifer Lopez’s production company for a television series adaptation at Netflix.
Read on to learn more about those behind the adaptations of Emily Henry books to movies.
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People We Meet on Vacation
3000 Pictures tapped Brett Haley to direct its adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation from Yulin Kuang’s adapted screenplay.
August saw the casting of Tom Blythe (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and Emily Bader (My Lady Jane) as Alex and Poppy, respectively, which Deadline reported exclusively.
Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey and Isaac Klausner are producing, and Laura Quicksilver is overseeing the project for Temple Hill with Erin Siminoff and Sophie Kaplan overseeing for the studio.
People We Meet on Vacation follows Alex and Poppy, who have nothing in common. She’s spontaneous; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. But ever since a fateful car-share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year, they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
RELATED: 3000 Pictures Taps Brett Haley To Direct Adaptation Of ‘People We Meet On Vacation’
Haley has the background of directing Hulu’s Looking for Alaska adapted from John Green’s best-selling book as well as All the Bright Places adapted from Jennifer Niven’s novel and starring Elle Fanning and Justice Smith.
At the time of this announcement, Kuang had most recently sold her feature adaptation of Maureen Goo’s novel I Believe In a Thing Called Love to Netflix with A-Major, Lee Byung-hun and Charles Pak producing and Lee Byung-hun starring. She also sold an original pitch to New Line called Jade Palace. In television, Kuang is adapting/directing a series based on the film 27 Dresses with Aline Brosh McKenna producing for ABC Studios, as well as a Jane Austen-inspired series called Hopeless Romantics for Paramount TV.
Beach Read
Yulin Kuang will adapt and direct the film adaptation of Beach Read for 20th Century Studios with Original Film producing. The development was announced in April 2023.
The novel tells the story of two authors, who have known each other since grad school., who swap genres for the summer in an attempt to aid their respective writers’ block for deals that they should be working on. January and Augustus happen to run into each other while on their own isolated writer’s retreats at Lake Michigan.
Kuang’s debut novel How to End a Love Story — which focuses on two screenwriters with a fraught past who have feelings for each other — came out in April 2024 and was a Reese Witherspoon’s book club pick.
Book Lovers
In March 2023, Tango revealed its intent to adapt Henry’s Book Lovers, which came out in 2022. Sarah Heyward is attached to write the script for the feature film, which comes from the producer of Sundance pic Shortcomings and Aftersun as well as Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Spaceman.
Book Lovers tells the story of Nora, a cutthroat literary agent who, convinced by her sister to spend one August holiday in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina, keeps running into Charlie, a bookish, brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, and Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again — in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow — what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
Heyward is best known for her work writing and producing HBO’s Emmy–winning Girls, for which she earned a WGA Award. She also worked on Modern Love, Amazon’s Emmy-nominated adaptation of the hit New York Times column as well as SKAM Austin on Facebook Watch.
Happy Place
Happy Place has been optioned by Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions. The story will be adapted into a television series at Netflix under Nuyorican’s multi-year first-look deal with the streamer.
The Berkley-published Happy Place follows Harriet and Wyn, who’ve been a perfect couple since they met in college — they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except now, for reasons they’re still not discussing, they don’t. They broke up five months ago, but when their friend group calls an emergency vacation meeting at the Maine beach house where they’ve spent most of their summers, they both answer, but they still haven’t told their best friends about the breakup. They find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the past decade, and continue to lie through their teeth to their friends about their relationship status.
Funny Story
The author herself will pen the script for the feature film adaptation of her most recent novel, Funny Story. The adaptation will come from Lyrical Media and Ryder Pictures Company.
The story follows children’s librarian Daphne, who has just been broken up with by her fiancé Peter, who quickly moved on to his childhood best friend, Petra. Forced out of their living situation, Daphne takes up residence with Miles, Petra’s ex-boyfriend. The pair hatch a fake dating scheme to make their exes jealous at the wedding, but as with the popular trope, the pair’s shared desire for revenge could spark a whole new flame.
Lyrical Media’s Alexander Black and Natalie Sellers as well as Ryder Picture Company’s Aaron Ryder and Andrew Swett will produce the film. Jon Rosenberg and Henry will executive produce with RPC’s Emma Rappold serving as co-producer. There is no word of a director attachment yet.