Summary

• Despite being a bestseller, Donna Tartt's novel "The Secret History" has faced numerous failed attempts at adaptation to film due to various reasons.
• Hollywood legends Alan J. Pakula and Joan Didion were initially involved in the first attempt at adaptation but faced obstacles and eventually, the project was shelved.
• Gwyneth and Jake Paltrow and author Bret Easton Ellis also tried to bring "The Secret History" to the screen, but unfortunate events and difficulties in finding a network for the adaptation prevented its realization.

Though Donna Tartt's novel is a bestseller, The Secret History has yet to be adapted to the screen after a handful of failed attempts to bring her book to life. Initially released in 1992, The Secret History is Tartt's first novel and follows students at a prestigious school who are encouraged by an eccentric professor to live outside the bounds of common morality--eventually murdering a classmate. The book was praised upon release and launched Tartt's career as a bona fide bestselling author, but it found new life in the 21st century as one of the crowning jewels of the so-called #BookTok section of the social media platform TikTok.

As of 2023, Tartt has penned three novels which have each been lauded by the literary critical establishment, with her most recent outing, The Goldfinch, earning her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book would be adapted into a movie in 2019, though The Goldfinch film was critically panned across the board which didn't necessarily reflect the quality of the book. Meanwhile, Tartt's debut novel, which has only grown in popularity since 1992, has become something of a Hollywood lost cause, with more than one high-profile expedition being broken on the rough waves that is Tartt's unique prose in The Secret History.

Alan J. Pakula, Joan Didion & John Gregory Dunne (1992)

Almost immediately after the release of Tartt's debut opus, The Secret History was quickly optioned with hopes of turning the book into a movie as quickly as possible. As befitting a novel of its stature and literary immensity, the book was first optioned by Hollywood legend Alan J. Pakula, the famous producer/director behind such hit films as Klute, All The President's Men, and Sophie's Choice. According to Penguin Publishing, Pakula snatched up the option for The Secret History in 1992 but was stalled throughout most of the 1990s as the project never seemed to come to fruition. The director made several films in the meantime, but Tartt's novel was neglected.

The director of some of the best Hollywood movies of the 1970s wasn't alone on his crusade to bring the story to life, and Pakula allegedly tapped famed author Joan Didion to help pen the screenplay (via The Independent). Didion is best remembered as one of the pioneers of new journalism, and her book The Year of Magical Thinking scored the Pulitzer Prize. The adaptation was eventually halted due to the tragic passing of Alan J. Pakula in 1998. Because of the way that screenplay options work, the rights to the book reverted to Tartt, and she was able to find another suitor for The Secret History.

Gwyneth & Jake Paltrow At Miramax (2002)

Just a few short years after the adaptation rights were forfeited following the death of Alan J. Pakula, Donna Tartt's The Secret History was quickly snatched up again, but this time by a group of young up-and-comers in Hollywood. According to The Independent, the book was optioned by the brother and sister duo of Gwyneth and Jake Paltrow who hoped to put their own spin on the story for the new millennium. By then, Tartt's novel was celebrating its 10th anniversary, but it hadn't lost the charm and appeal that attracted so many to want to adapt it.

By 2002, Paltrow was already riding high in Tinseltown thanks to her controversial Oscar win in 1999 for Shakespeare in Love. This made Miramax quite eager to work with her and her brother on a version of Tartt's novel that would reinvigorate the book's appeal. Paltrow took on writing duties while her brother was set to direct and follow in the footsteps of their father, Bruce Paltrow, himself a director. Unfortunately, the death of the elder Paltrow derailed whatever plans the siblings had, and another tragedy would keep The Secret History from seeing the silver screen yet again.

Bret Easton Ellis & Melissa Rosenberg (2013)

More than a decade after the Paltrow siblings couldn't get The Secret History off the ground, Hollywood once again attempted to scale the 500-plus page mountain, but this time with a figure from Tartt's own life to do the adaptation. Author Bret Easton Ellis is most remembered for his satirical 1991 horror novel American Psycho, but he was also a student at the prestigious Bennington school at the same time as Donna Tartt, and The Secret History was partially dedicated to him. Therefore, as Town and Country reported, it only made sense that he would use his literary powers to help adapt the book.

Due in large part to the release of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch, interest was once again at an all-time high for an adaptation of The Secret History, and Ellis was joined by former Bennington classmate Melissa Rosenberg. Unlike previous attempts which were focused squarely on a feature film, Ellis and Rosenberg reportedly hoped to make the novel into a miniseries which would allow for more of the rich lore and prose to spill out onto the screen. Unfortunately, The Secret History slipped through their fingers once again as the writing duo failed to find a network that would bite on the ambitious project.

Why The Secret History Adaptation Will Likely Never Happen

While some books are considered unadaptable, others merely take a long time to come to fruition because the idea wasn't fully formed. Classic novels like A Confederacy of Dunces have been similarly plagued with production nightmares, while others like Catcher in the Rye have been expressly banned from being adapted. Donna Tartt's The Secret History exists in all the aforementioned categories, and it will likely never be brought to the big screen thanks to a mixture of Hollywood incompetence, and Tartt's own desire to protect her vision which was sullied by other productions.

The 2019 adaptation of her book The Goldfinch was a certified flop that only made a fraction of the money that it cost to make (via Box Office Mojo). Besides that, it was also a critical failure which not only called into question the adaptation but seemed to make the original source material look bad in the process. While the finished product was a nightmare, Donna Tartt was already soured on Hollywood by 2017 when she fired her long-time agent over disagreements with how The Goldfinch was being handled (via Page Six).

Naturally, such a bad experience left her turned off from Hollywood forever, but it is definitely in keeping with Tartt's character that she would want to avoid the glitz and glam. In a 2013 interview with Town and Country, Tartt described herself as a "lone wolf" and it is clear she didn't like her work being handled by someone else. However, that didn't stop her from allowing The Secret History to be optioned several times which undoubtedly resulted in big paychecks for the famous writer, but she will likely eschew the big paydays in the future in order to preserve her literary legacy.