Rights checks focus on older works

A study by Rightscenter, published on October 20, shows that nearly two-thirds of rights checks concern titles at least three years old. This indicates a growing interest in established works rather than new manuscripts. The report, Book-to-Screen Marketplace Insights, 2019–2026, notes that the gap between new releases and older works has widened since 2021, despite a brief period of convergence during the rise of streaming.

Books dominate rights requests

Books represented 65.3% of requests in 2025, and 65.6% in the first half of 2026. The study analyzed 41,771 requests across 26,570 titles, made by 692 users from 365 companies between 2019 and June 2026. Each request aims to check the availability of audiovisual rights and their holders, but does not confirm the purchase of an option or the launch of an adaptation.

Interest in older titles grows

The share of research on upcoming titles dropped from 18.3% in 2021 to 5.5% in 2025. Rightscenter attributes this to increased caution from studios and a decline in speculative bidding. In 2025, 35.2% of checks concerned works at least ten years old, and 19.9% on titles twenty years or older. The core of the market remains books aged three to fifteen years.

Variations in title age preferences

Practices differ across industries: the median age of the titles examined is one year for film studios, three for television, five for production companies, and ten for publishers. Publishers can also identify counterparts for their audiovisual rights. The share of series literature has increased from 10.1% in 2019 to 21.8% in 2025.

Popular titles and their adaptations

On Rightscenter, 74.9% of titles have only interested a single requester. Some of the most requested titles include Exhalation by Ted Chiang and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Other notable titles include The Midnight Library by Matt Haig and L’Anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin ranks 28th, and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, reprinted in 2026, is also among the top requested.

Translated works see increased interest

In the first half of 2026, among the works requested at least twice, Rightscenter recorded 3.5 times more translated literature than a year earlier, and four times more Japanese titles. However, none of the works mentioned in this list belong to the public domain. In France, the protective period lasts up to seventy years after the author's death; translations also benefit from their own protection.

Adapting free works remains complex

Adapting a book that is truly free of rights allows avoiding the payment of an option or a license on its original text. However, the creative contributions of translations or previous films can still be protected. Rightscenter does not specify what share of its research concerns the public domain, making it difficult to link this status to the growth of the catalog.

Publishers expand their catalogs

Some houses are already organizing the audiovisual visibility of their catalogs. In June 2026, Publishers Weekly reported the integration of more than 6,000 titles from Simon & Schuster's catalog into the professional database Black List. In France, Hachette Livre and STUDIOCANAL have created ON SCREEN to develop adaptations from the Hachette catalog.

Recent literary adaptations

Several recent adaptations are in the works, including East of Eden on Netflix, Icebreaker on Netflix, and The Little Prince directed by Morten Tyldum. Other projects include Morgane Moncomble’s Seasons saga and The Camino by Anya Niewierra. These adaptations highlight the ongoing trend of translating popular literary works into visual media.