Recently, we have received several questions asking when The Heinlein Society will allow movies or TV shows to be made from Heinlein books. Also people have inquired about making some of Heinlein’s later novels available in E-book format. The easy answer is we don’t own the copyrights so therefore have no say in the matter. Here is the actual answer.

The Heinlein Prize Trust is the entity that owns the copyrights to most of Heinlein’s published works. They are represented by Eleanor Wood of The Spectrum Literary Agency. To acquire the rights to a book for media production, a producer typically contacts HPT or their literary agent and negotiates to "option" the film rights, which means they purchase the exclusive right to adapt the book into a film for a specific period of time, usually with a set fee, allowing them to develop the project before fully committing to buying the rights outright; this process often involves a legal contract outlining the terms of adaptation and creative control. Im sure this has happened on several occasions, but that doesn’t mean a film or TV show will actually come to fruition.

A good example of this is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In 2015 Fox acquired an option to Moon and planned to make a movie entitled Uprising based on the book. Bryan Singer was hired to be the director and a script was developed by Marc Guggenheim. For some reason the movie was never made.

Another example is Stranger in a Strange Land. In 2016 the SyFy channel optioned the rights to make Stranger into a TV series. Obviously, that hasn’t happened either.

I’m sure the Heinlein Prize Trust / The Spectrum Literary Agency would be pleased to entertain any offers from producers concerning Heinlein’s books. The Heinlein Society would also be pleased, mainly because it would bring Heinlein’s name to a new generation and hopefully also bring them to his written work.

That being said, there are two new projects in the works:

A new Citizen of the Galaxy animated film is in development at Lex+Otis Studios, directed by Jay Oliva with a script by Luke Lieberman. The film aims for a 2027 release and is a direct adaptation of the 1957 novel.

Also, a new feature film of Starship Troopers is being planned. Neill Blomkamp, District 9 director, is writing and directing a new adaptation of the classic novel for Columbia Pictures. It has been reported that the film is not a remake of the 1997 Paul Verhoeven film, but instead will be closer to the Heinlein novel.

And, by the way, we have been in communication with the Heinlein Prize Trust about Heinlein’s later novels being made available in E-book format. They assure us that they are pursuing the issue with a publisher.

https://heinleinsociety.org/heinlein-in-the-news/