The elusive feature adaptation of Paulo Coelho’s popular novel The Alchemist has gone from lead to gold — again.
Legendary Entertainment has secured the film, TV and ancillary rights to develop a feature based on the classic novel, with TriStar Pictures on board to release. Jack Thorne — whose film credits include Enola Holmes and The Swimmers — is attached to write the feature adaptation of a popular 1988 novel that has seen a road to the big screen as winding as the traveler’s philosophical journey in the book.
Laurence Fishburne had wanted to develop Coelho’s best-selling book for 16 years after acquiring the film rights from Warner Bros. Pictures with the intent of making the movie themselves. Warners acquired author Coelho’s book — about a traveler journeying the world during the Inquisition in order to find man’s purpose in the world — in 2003 as a Fishburne vehicle.
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In 2008, The Weinstein Co. boarded the project as producers, partnering with Fishburne and buying the film rights. By 2015, it looked as if Idris Elba was attached to star in the Weinstein adaptation, with Fishburne set to direct.
But the project was put into turnaround some months later, and in 2016, PalmStar Media acquired film rights and the developed screenplays for $5 million in partnership with TriStar. At this time, Fishburne was still attached to direct. But in July 2021, he was no longer directing.
Instead, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Studios unveiled a deal to join with Netter Films to produce The Alchemist, with PalmStar founder Kevin Frakes set to make his feature directorial debut on the project, having co-written the screenplay.
That deal soured, leading to the latest iteration of The Alchemist adaptation with Legendary Entertainment and Tristar Pictures in the driver’s seat.
Coelho’s novel — which has sold over 100 million copies since its 1988 publication and holds the Guinness World Record for most translated work by a living author — centers on a young Spanish shepherd who has a dream and embarks on a quest to find hidden treasure in the great pyramids of Egypt.
The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches readers about the essential wisdom of listening to their hearts and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path to follow dreams.
Thorne, a BAFTA and Tony Award-winning British screenwriter, has TV credits that include Help, His Dark Materials and National Treasure. His theater credits include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and The Motive and the Cue.
Thorne is repped by UTA and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern, as well as Casarotto Ramsay & Associates in the U.K.
