Elin Hilderbrand is opening up about her many books that are being adapted for the small and big screen. At Nantucket Film Festival’s “Flipping the Script: Bestsellers to Screen” panel on Sunday, Hilderbrand was joined by Jenna Lamia, the showrunner of “The Perfect Couple” and the team from the upcoming “Five-Star Weekend” series, writer and producer Bekah Brunstetter, UCP executive Jen Gwartz, NBCUniversal’s Lisa Katz and producer Sue Naegle.
“The Five-Star Weekend” is currently in production, starring Jennifer Garner, Regina Hall, Chloë Sevigny, Gemma Chan, D’Arcy Carden and Timothy Olyphant. But it’s one of many in the works for Hilderbrand, whose first adaptation was “The Perfect Couple.”
“Jenna and I are developing the ‘Winter Street’ series with Netflix,” she laughed on the panel before diving into other adaptations coming. “I have a project going with Universal, which I won’t talk about.”
Gwartz gave her permission to say which series she was referring to, but not what platform it will be on. “The ‘Paradise’ series, which is set on St. John, is with Universal,” said Hilderbrand. “And then ’28 Summers’ is in development. And my novel ‘The Academy,’ that I wrote with my daughter, which is coming out in September, is in development. And ‘The Hotel Nantucket’ is in development.”
She continued, “‘Summer of ’69’ was with Sony and went upside down, and I’ve had lots of projects go upside down. I had ‘The Identicals’ at Hulu… that went upside down. It is so hard to get something made. All the stars have to align, so when I’m talking about these projects that are in development, some of them might not get made, but it’s looking better for me now than it was!”
Elin Hilderbrand, Jenna Lamia, and Bekah Brunstetter during Flipping the Script: Bestsellers to Screen with Elin Hilderbrand
Andrew Walker/Shutterstock
During the audience Q&A, she was asked what she meant by “upside down” and elaborated on her shows that didn’t make it off the ground.
“For example, ‘The Identicals,’ we shopped around Hollywood. We had some offers. We went with Hulu. Hulu was in development with the writers… The writers had the first script and the rest of the season mapped out, and they took it into Hulu, and they passed,” she said. “So at that point, it’s dead letter office. That also happened with ‘Summer of ’69.’ Sony bought it. We had great writers. The script was amazing, and they couldn’t sell it… It happens all the time.”
When discussing Season 2 of “The Perfect Couple,” she played coy, as the show has not yet been officially renewed at Netflix and was planned, originally, as a limited series. However, it’s been reported that a second season will be made based on her “Swan Song” book.
“If a Season 2 is made, it will be called ‘The Perfect Couple.’ If a Season 2 is made, it will be based on my novel ‘Swan Song.’ That I can say,” she said. When asked whether Joanna Calo would showrun the potential second season, she replied, “If Season 2 is made, Joanna Calo will be the showrunner. Did I have drinks with her this week? I did.”
Lamia and Hilderbrand also talked about the evolution of Season 1 of the very successful “The Perfect Couple”; it took many years and wasn’t easy.
“It had a five-year roller coaster ride to getting made. It was a pilot for Fox. It was a network show, and then it wasn’t, and then we almost made it in Singapore with Singaporean actors,” said Lamia.
The series changed a bit from the jump as well, as Netflix had a bit of a different vision — but Hilderbrand gave Lamia “blanket permission” to change whatever she needed to.
“For those of you who read the book and said, ‘It’s nothing like the show,’ Netflix really wanted a six-episode murder mystery. So there’s a lot about the love affairs in the book, but those didn’t quite [make it in]. I think you and I both felt, ‘Oh, we wish we’d had two more episodes to dive into the love stories.’ But that is not what Netflix wanted,” the author said. “And it was fine, because I feel like, as a six-episode murder mystery, it’s one of the best out there, and it’s beautiful. I was very happy with it.”
Lamia added, “The screen time was needed for the murder mystery and intrigue, and it took on a darker comedic tone. Things just evolve over time, especially as a director gets involved, and then cast members get involved, and you start rewriting for them. Things begin to shift; the Tag character shifted so much once Leiv [Schreiber] signed on. There were things that we were sad to lose along the way, but we gained so much. I didn’t know it was going to be as funny as it ended up.”
For Hilderbrand, she reminds her readers who aren’t always thrilled with an adaptation of one thing: “Everybody can read the book, and then you can enjoy the show. It’s two separate experiences.”
