There’s little question that Harlan Coben is the grasp of twisty thrillers, along with his unbelievable book-to-screen variations like The Stranger and Stay Close receiving crucial acclaim. In reality, his most up-to-date TV venture Fool Me Once grew to become one among Netflix’s hottest reveals of all time.
After the announcement that Netflix can be turning two extra Harlan Coben novels into sequence, his subsequent thriller hit will lastly arrived within the type of Missing You on January 1, 2025. Based on Coben’s novel of the identical identify, Missing You is not going to solely mark one other collaboration between him and the most effective streaming companies, but in addition author Victoria Asare-Archer.
Asare-Archer is aware of what it takes to make a really gripping Coben sequence as she beforehand wrote two episodes of the massively profitable Stay Close, which was probably the most watched English language present worldwide on Netflix in January 2022. Now, she’s the lead author and government producer on Coben’s ninth on-screen adaptation Missing You.
Missing You tells the story of detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) whose world comes crashing down when she finds her estranged fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) on a courting app after vanishing 11 years earlier. This sudden reappearance leads Kat to reopen the unsolved thriller surrounding her father’s homicide, which poses the query: is there a connection between her fiancé’s disappearance and her father’s loss of life?
Expect the sudden
Coben’s mystery-thriller novels have been the keystone for quite a few the very best Netflix reveals and are universally liked for his signature twists and turns that have you ever guessing till the very finish.
While we are able to nonetheless count on all of the jaw-dropping surprises from a typical Coben sequence, creator Asare-Archer revealed that Missing You is completely different from the remainder of because it’s probably the most emotional adaptation but.
“I believe the large distinction with that is that it’s emphatically a love story, prefer it’s rather more emotional than the others within the sense of it is a story a couple of detective who’s misplaced her fiancé, misplaced her father, and he or she’s utterly pushed by what these losses do to her. But it is a very loving, heat, humorous sequence about love,” she instructed me. “All of those massive twists and turns come from the character’s determined pursuits of making an attempt to guard somebody they love, discover somebody they love, honor somebody they love. And it is that type of desperation that love brings to us all. So it’s extremely a lot a love story, which I do not suppose we have seen earlier than in any of our sequence.”
Coben’s writing thrives on-screen with the whodunnit trope proving to be the inspiration of binge-watching. I imply, we have all involuntarily clicked on the ‘Next Episode’ button once we’re making an attempt to work out a assassin’s identification or expose corrupt characters? Right?
From unsolved murders to vanishing youngsters, the Coben TV universe all play with the traditional fascinating thriller tropes of deception and hazard. So we all know what kind of gasp-inducing bombshells are in retailer once we press play on our distant – however whereas they’re alike in that method, Missing You is unalike in lots of others.
Asare-Archer stated: “All of the opposite sequence have an analogous DNA in that everyone knows what we will count on from the world general, however all of them really feel completely different and that is very a lot the love story. This is a love story a couple of lady’s determined seek for her previous and the way it adjustments us. I believe it feels simply much more intense in a method. It’s a lot shorter, so it is 5 episodes round one character.”
Adapting novels does include its challenges
Asare-Archer was enthusiastic about adapting one other Coben sequence for Netflix, having grown up studying his books. “It was a little bit of a dream for me. It simply felt like there’s an actual synergy between mine and Harlan’s writing types. It’s type of being given the keys to the Lamborghini and requested to take over the entire thing, which is fairly unbelievable. It was an actual thrill,” she gushed.
However, adapting novels does include its challenges, particularly if you’re taking such a well-loved e-book and creating one thing new out of it. For Missing You specifically, the tough facet was taking a novel that could be very inner and translating it onto the small display screen.
Asare-Archer defined: “Adapting novels is at all times going to be tough within the sense of the completely different artwork kinds, however significantly with this novel, it is all instructed from the viewpoint of 1 character, and it’s extremely, very inner, very, very considerate. There’s quite a lot of inside monologue and dialogue and thought, and actually taking somebody’s ideas and emotions and remodeling that into drama on the display screen is simply such a tough trial and a very good one.
“But it is type of discovering a strategy to take what is going on on in our coronary heart and our thoughts and switch it on to motion and make it one thing that the viewers actually understands. That was undoubtedly tough with this e-book, as a result of it is the e-book that is probably the most inner and most considerate, however then it makes it probably the most emotional of the sequence we have achieved.”
Future initiatives
With this being Asare-Archer’s second Coben venture, might there be any extra potential future variations? Well, she remained coy concerning the query, however there’s a glimmer of hope as she stated: “Time will inform, we’ll see.”
One factor’s for certain although is that Asare-Archer has discovered her calling relating to Coben thrillers. “I’ve realized my candy spot is romantic thrillers. Give me a love story, somebody with a gun,” and I can not wait to see her take intention at what she does subsequent.
