“The Beach” arrived at an interesting time for Danny Boyle and his star Leonardo DiCaprio. The director was still nursing the wounds after the poorly received “A Life Less Ordinary,” his followup to the breakout hit “Trainspotting.” As for the actor, he was still riding the global superstardom high following “Titanic,” and the project offered him a way to rough up his glossy, heartthrob magazine image. But things didn’t quite work out. The film, though it did decently earning $144 million worldwide from a $50 million budget, was savaged by critics, and Boyle lost his friendship with Ewan McGregor who he had originally promised to cast in the movie, only to choose DiCaprio instead (the pair didn’t talk again for years). Moreover, “The Beach” was never particularly well regarded, though its reputation has improved in the years since. Well, there may be another adaptation in the works.
During a Reddit AMA, Alex Garland — who wrote the novel the film was based on — confirmed that something was brewing, though he didn’t go into much detail:
Way back in 2012, Fox picked up a TV series adaptation of “The Beach” Andrew Miller (“The Secret Circle,” the upcoming “Tremors” TV series) who pitched his take quite broadly as being “about a group of young people feeling disconnected and disenchanted from society who try to start over in paradise but discover that while creating the perfect world is hard, protecting it is even harder.”
It’s unclear if this new iteration is still set up at Fox, or how much Garland is involved, but it does seem that he’s certainly aware of it. “The Beach” does have the kind of premise which could lend itself to being opened up for more narrative possibilities. Anyway, one to keep an eye out for but first, go see “Annihilation” this weekend.