Continuing her well-established working relationship with Netflix, Stranger Things and Enola Holmes star Millie Bobby Brown is adapting her debut novel, Nineteen Steps, with the high-profile streamer. In addition to producing the feature-length project, Brown plans to star in the movie, which has a screenplay by Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything).
William Morrow published Brown’s novel, which became a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Brown partnered with Kathleen McGurl to adapt the story, focusing on Mellie Morris, an 18-year-old girl living in the East London neighborhood of Bethnal Green.
Here’s a synopsis for Millie Bobby Brown’s Nineteen Steps courtesy of Amazon:
It’s 1942, and air raid sirens continue to wail around London. Eighteen-year-old Nellie Morris counts every day lucky that she emerges from the underground shelters unharmed, her loving family still surrounding her.
After a chance encounter with Ray, an American airman stationed nearby, she becomes enchanted with the idea of a broader world. Just as she begins to embrace an exciting new life with Ray, a terrible incident occurs during an air raid one evening, tearing her world apart. But when it seems all hope is lost, Nellie finds that, against all odds, love and happiness can triumph.
Known famously for her Stranger Things role, Millie Bobby Brown is a woman wearing many hats in Hollywood. She starred in Netflix’s Damsel earlier this year, in which she squares off against a terrible beast after being offered up as a sacrifice by a handsome prince, while a third film in the Enola Holmes series is in pre-production with Harry Bradbeer directing. Additionally, Brown is preparing to star in Joe and Anthony Russo’s The Electric State, a dystopian sci-fi adventure starring Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Stanley Tucci, and Jenny Slate. In The Electric State, an orphaned teen travels the American West with a sweet but mysterious robot and eccentric drifter searching for her younger brother.
With a star as bright as Brown’s, Netflix is in a prime position to host any projects she spins up. Brown wades into sensitive territory with Nineteen Steps, and fans are eager to see how the novel translates to screens.