Annapurna TV Wins Bidding War for Debut Novel From ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ Author Celeste Ng (EXCLUSIVE)

Matt Donnelly
·2 min read

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Annapurna Television has emerged the winner of a multi-studio bidding war for the rights to “Everything I Never Told You,” the debut novel from author Celeste Ng.

The company will develop the New York Times best-seller as a limited series, following the release of “Little Fires Everywhere,” the Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington Hulu drama based on Ng’s novel of the same name.

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Ng and Mary Lee of A-Major Media, a production company dedicated to championing Asian American voices in film and TV, will serve as executive producers on the limited series adaptation. Megan Ellison, Sue Naegle, Patrick Chu and Ali Krug will executive produce the project for Annapurna.

UTA and Julie Barer at The Book Group brokered the deal on Ng’s behalf.

“Everything I Never Told You” explores the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle to understand each other over a lifetime. Set in a small town in 1970s Ohio, protagonist Lydia is the adored but put-upon child of Marilyn and James Lee. When her body is found in a local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, sending them into chaos.

Published in 2014 by Penguin Books, “Everything I Never Told You” became a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014 and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. The title also won the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the ALA’s Alex Award and the Medici Book Club Prize, and was a finalist for numerous awards, including the Ohioana Award and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. It has been translated into over 30 languages.

Annapurna TV also snagged another hot property last year, in the scripted rights to the Netflix documentary “The Staircase.” Harrison Ford is attached to star in the adaptation as novelist Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife in 2001. Peterson claimed his wife died after falling down the stairs at their home, but police suspected he bludgeoned her to death and staged the scene to look like an accident.

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