Paramount Pictures has won the North American distribution rights to The Midnight Library, the film adaptation of Matt Haig’s global bestseller, in a $36 million deal that closed as the Cannes market wound down — making it the single largest acquisition to emerge from this year’s festival.
Paramount beat out Focus Features and Sony, both of which had been pursuing domestic and select international rights on the approximately $70 million production. StudioCanal, which is financing and producing alongside Blueprint Pictures, will distribute the film across its own territories — the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Benelux, Australia and New Zealand — with Paramount handling the rest of the world. The deal is not yet formally closed, with the two studios still finalizing the territory breakdown.
Florence Pugh will star and produce, playing Nora Seed, a woman who finds herself in a liminal library between life and death where she can explore alternate versions of the lives she might have lived. Garth Davis directs from a screenplay by Olivier Award winner Laura Wade and Tony nominee Nick Payne.
Davis and Pugh are already mid-collaboration: the two just wrapped Netflix’s East of Eden adaptation together, a working relationship Davis cited as central to his enthusiasm for the project. “Her warmth and talent are magical,” he said when the package was first announced.
Blueprint Pictures — whose track record includes In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin — is producing alongside Anita Overland and Pugh herself. Haig serves as executive producer. Pre-production is set to begin this autumn, with filming scheduled to start in early 2027.
Haig’s novel, first published in 2020, has sold 15 million copies and been translated into 56 languages. The book’s strongest commercial markets are in Europe — precisely the territories StudioCanal is retaining — which raises questions about how aggressively Paramount can monetize its investment in North America, where prestige literary adaptations have had an inconsistent box office track record in recent years.
Also Read
Pugh herself carries a formidable level of anticipation into the project: she is due in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three in December and appears as Yelena Belova in Avengers: Doomsday, giving The Midnight Library the marketing benefit of one of Hollywood’s most visible stars at the height of her profile.
