Children of Blood and Bone, the best-selling YA trilogy by Nigerian-American author Tomi Adeyemi, is officially being adapted into a film through Paramount Pictures.
After a bidding war between multiple studios (including Universal, Amazon, and Netflix), the action-fantasy movie has found a home at Paramount with Adeyemi writing the script and executive producing. Deadline reports that the property is “seen as one of the more substantial IPs since The Hunger Games rights hit the market” and Amazon’s deal included a seven-figure screenwriting guarantee and creative approvals for Adeyemi.
The hype is well-deserved as the first and second books both debuted at number one on the New York Times best-seller list for young adult books. The series, with a still yet to be published final book, is about a girl named Zélie Adebola who goes on a journey to restore magic to the fictional country Orïsha and end the ruling class’s oppression of her people.
Adeyemi drew inspiration for Children of Blood and Bone from the West African Yoruba culture as well as Western fantasy fiction. Often being compared to Harry Potter, the trilogy explores themes of class oppression, power, and the complexity of adolescence.
At 24-years-old, Adeyemi was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020 and has won both a Hugo and Nebula award for her work as a writer.
