That octopus book is heading to the screen.
Netlfix has picked up a film package that adapts , the wildly popular novel by Shelby Van Pelt.
Sally Field, the veteran actress last seen in 80 for Brady, is in talks to star in the feature that is to be directed by Olivia Newman, perhaps best known for helming Where the Crawdads Sing. Newman is also writing the script with John Whittington.
Producing the adaptation will be David Levine via Anonymous Content along with Bryan Unkeless (I, Tonya) and Peter Craig, the established screenwriter of The Town and The Batman. Craig is also Field’s son.
The novel told of the unique relationship between a lonely woman working as a janitor at an aquarium and a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus living at the facility.
The woman is grieving the death of her husband and also still processing the disappearance of her son at sea thirty years earlier. The octopus is one cranky cephalopod but is smarter than the humans around him think, and he just may be the only one who can help the woman.
The book was released by Ecco in spring 2022 and became a word-of-mouth sensation, growing to become the top-selling book of 2023, according to certain book tracking publications. The book has sold over 2 million copies and gone through at least 30 printings as it became known popularly as “that octopus book.”
It served as the debut novel for Van Pelt, a former financial consultant who, over the course of several years, built it out of a short story she wrote during a fiction writing workshop at Emory University.
Netflix had no comment on the deal.
Executive producing are Tony Lipp of Anonymous Content and Alyssa Rodrigues.
Whittington co-wrote Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which grossed over $400 million worldwide, then launched the Knuckles limited series for Paramount+ in April. He co-wrote Sonic 3, which will open in December. Whittington has a history in animation, working on The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie, and DC League of Super-Pets.
Newman already has experience in the adaptation field as her Crawdads translated the book by Delia Owens. The movie proved to be a hit, grossing $144.3 million worldwide on a $24 million budget. She also directed the pilot for The Last Thing He Told Me, Apple’s adaptation of the novel by Laura Dave that starred Jennifer Garner.
Field’s extensive screen career includes two Academy Awards, for 1979’s Norma Rae and 1984’s Places in the Heart, and a nomination for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Her credits range from the Smokey and the Bandit movies and Hooper to Mrs. Doubtfire and Forrest Gump to playing Aunt May in the Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man movies. Among her more recent work was portraying Jeanie Buss in HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.
Field is repped by UTA and Anonymous Content. Newman is represented by WME, Grandview, and Jackoway Austen while Whittington is repped by Verve, Grandview, and McGuin Frankel.
Grandview additionally reps Craig and Unkeless, as does CAA. The two are also repped by Hansen Jacobson and Eric Suddleson, respectively.
