Lewis Pullman (left) and Sally Field in 'Remarkably Bright Creatures.' Courtesy of Everett Collection The launch for Netflix‘s feature adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures has gone swimmingly.
Adapting author Shelby Van Pelt’s best-selling 2022 novel, director Olivia Newman‘s film version stars Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, Joan Chen and the voice of Alfred Molina as octopus Marcellus. Remarkably Bright Creatures debuted on the streaming platform Friday and currently holds the No. 1 film spot on Netflix’s top 10 rankings.
The movie stars Field as a widow who bonds with a giant Pacific octopus while also connecting with a young man (Pullman) in need of direction. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney noted that “its gentle sense of humor and depth of feeling are enough to sweep you away on a wave of emotion.” Indeed, Remarkably Bright Creatures has spurred TikTok users to post footage of themselves reacting to watching the film and getting emotional.
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Before Ecco published Remarkably Bright Creatures in May 2022, marking Van Pelt’s debut, the author’s agent Kristin Nelson from Nelson Literary Agency sent the manuscript to Anonymous Content manager Kassie Evashevski. Anonymous represents Van Pelt’s film and television rights to the work on behalf of the agency.
“It was [during] COVID, and it just made me smile,” Evashevski tells THR of the novel that has since sold roughly four million copies and was a selection for Jenna Bush Hager’s book club. “It was one of the few things at the time that I read that made me just feel good.”
After Evashevski took the script out to producers, she heard from Bryan Unkeless and Peter Craig, who loved what they read and sent the book to Field, with the actress also having heard about it from her son. Anonymous saw an opportunity to package the project and began developing the script, with the company’s David Levine serving as producer. Newman (Where the Crawdads Sing) helmed the movie from a script by John Whittington that adapted Van Pelt’s book.
Sally Field in Remarkably Bright Creatures. Courtesy of Netflix “The story has a lot of humor, but it’s very moving emotionally. It’s also very sincere,” says Evashevski, whose team represents Pullman, Chen and Molina. “It’s not that often, but sometimes, there are blessed journeys from book to screen, and this is one of them. It’s really been a fairytale experience.”
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