Tom Hooper released from movie jail to direct Netflix adaptation of Millie Bobby Brown novel

Nineteen Steps is a novel co-written by Netflix mainstay Millie Bobby Brown, which debuted in 2023. The novel is a romance set in WWII London—a setting Hooper is well acquainted with after The King’s Speech and perhaps, though it’s not really clear, Cats. According to Deadline, Nineteen Steps was both a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. It features, on its first page, the incredible sentence: “It was hot — the kind of heat that makes you long for the weather to cool down.” Brown published Nineteen Steps when she was just nineteen years old, and will produce and likely star in the adaptation for Netflix. 

Clearly, Brown holds some real sway at Netflix. Earlier this month, she withdrew from the Kerri Strug biopic Perfect, which ended up sidelining the whole project. Still, given that its putting in the work to adapt her novel, it doesn’t seem like there’s any bad blood between her and the streamer.