Last week, M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything became the first sci-fi novel to win the Booker Prize. It follows Phillip Tennent, a beachcomber who fishes a dangerous artifact out of the ocean. With so much attention on the novel thanks to the awards publicity, naturally, inquiring minds want to know if there’s a film adaptation in the works.
When Deadline asked the 81-year-old British author about a potential adaptation, Harrison responded, “We do have some interest, it hasn’t gone far enough to be able to talk about [in detail], but there is interest in doing something.”
Harrison also revealed another fun film-related tidbit about the book: he visualized its scenery so vividly that he nearly subtitled it “A Film.”
“When I’ve constructed a scene, when I turn it into words, I can see it,” Harrison explained. “And I was, in fact, going to subtitle this novel The End of Everything: A Film. I lost my nerve at the last minute, but I now really wish I’d done it, because it’s got the structure of a kind of middle-European film, with the right provenance to be very watchable indeed.”
But don’t get your hopes up for a lush Apple TV series adaptation: Harrison specified that he’d prefer to see The End of Everything as a film.
