EXCLUSIVE: Millie Bobby Brown may have just exited Perfect, the Netflix pic on Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug, over creative differences, as we first reported. But progress on her film slate continues, as Deadline has learned that she’s enlisted Academy Award winner Tom Hooper to direct the feature adaptation of her New York Times bestselling novel Nineteen Steps for Netflix.
As previously announced, Anthony McCarten, the four-time Oscar nominee behind films like Bohemian Rhapsody and The Theory of Everything, is set to adapt the screenplay for the film, which remains in development. Millie Bobby Brown, Jake Bongiovi and Bobby Brown are producing for PCMA alongside Jonathan Eirich for Rideback, with an eye for Brown to star. Nick Reynolds will exec produce for Rideback.
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 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.
Hooper won the Oscar for Best Director for The King’s Speech and is otherwise best known for helming the Oscar-winning films Les Misérables and and The Danish Girl. Most recently, he attached to direct Photograph 51, an adaptation of the Anna Ziegler play of the same name that will star Natalie Portman as Rosalind Franklin, the groundbreaking British scientist who first unveiled the hidden structure of DNA. That project was announced during last year’s Cannes Market. Also known for work on series like His Dark Materials and John Adams, Hooper is repped by CAA, Independent Talent in UK, and Warren Dern.
For Brown, other upcoming projects include the Netflix films Enola Holmes 3 and Just Picture It — the latter being a college rom-com from director Lee Toland Krieger.
Coming off Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, which earned more than $1 billion in global box office last year, Rideback is also behind Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, which will air its second season later this year, as well as the streamer’s upcoming dance comedy feature Best of the Best.