{"id":293400,"date":"2026-02-12T02:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T02:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293400\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T02:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T02:25:08","slug":"how-the-box-office-success-of-hamnet-sparked-sales-of-the-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293400\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Box Office Success of ‘Hamnet’ Sparked Sales of the Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn 2019, Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s agent sent emailed a group of producers and filmmakers to share a manuscript of the author\u2019s upcoming book. \u201cHamnet<\/a>,\u201d as the novel was titled, centered around William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, following the couple as they grapple with the sudden death of their 11-year-old son. Liza Marshall, a U.K. based producer, read it in a single sitting. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was such an extraordinarily moving book,\u201d Marshall says. \u201cI had a profound reaction to it. There was an intimacy to it, and it was incredibly tragic, but also cinematic. Ultimately, it\u2019s about the healing power of storytelling.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tMost of the people O\u2019Farrell\u2019s agent contacted passed on the project, but Marshall jumped at the chance to make her pitch. She connected with O\u2019Farrell, who was at home in Edinburgh, over Zoom, and the two hit it off. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s a very generous person who realized, as she puts it, that the book is her baby and the film is like her nephew,\u201d Marshall says. \u201cShe always knew it would be a different thing, and it was never going to be a replica of the book. It was always an adaptation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo Marshall snapped up the rights before the novel hit shelves, which turned out to be a smart business decision. When \u201cHamnet\u201d was published in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, its story of love and loss resonated with people whose lives had been upended. The film adaptation was soon set up at Steven Spielberg\u2019s Amblin, which brought in Focus Features thanks to a production deal that the companies maintain. The partners then enlisted Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, the Oscar-winning director behind \u201cNomadland,\u201d to find a way to make a domestic tragedy set in Elizabethan England compelling for modern audiences. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe had confidence in Chlo\u00e9,\u201d says Kiska Higgs, Focus\u2019 president of production and acquisitions. \u201cShe\u2019s entrancing. And she\u2019d gotten all this acclaim and attention for her work. She said that she was really interested in just making a film and creating a family and having an emotional transformation. That\u2019s what she set out to do, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re drawn to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao turned to O\u2019Farrell to help her adapt the novel. The pair streamlined the storyline and made it unfold chronologically, a change from the book, which moves backwards and forwards in time. And certain characters, such as Agnes\u2019 mother, were reduced so the story could focus more intently on how William Shakespeare and his wife process their trauma. Zhao also let her ensemble, which includes Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, shape their characters through dream workshops during which they analyzed their nocturnal imaginings. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA lot of dialogue came out of that, and a lot of imagery came out of that,\u201d Higgs says. \u201cAnd then Chloe and Maggie would consult and return to the authenticity of the book and the historicity of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen \u201cHamnet\u201d opened last fall, it scored rave reviews. It also became one of the few indie productions to cross over to the mainstream. Filmed for $35 million, \u201cHamnet\u201d has gone on to earn $70.6 million. It has performed particularly strongly internationally with $48.8 of its haul coming from foreign markets, outgrossing \u201cThe Favourite,\u201d\u00a0\u201cPoor Things,\u201d\u00a0\u201cConclave\u201d and\u00a0\u201cBelfast\u201d at the same point in their life cycles. Marshall thinks that the story of one family\u2019s grief resonates with audiences who are looking for a way to connect at a time when the world can feel polarized. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt gives people a real reason to go to the cinema,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople are hearing about the emotional power of the film and wanting to experience that in a darkened room with strangers. I\u2019ve seen the film as you can imagine, many, many, times, but when I sat in the audience at its premiere, I started crying all over again. There\u2019s this kind of collective emotional outpouring that\u2019s happening in cinemas. People want to do that communally. That\u2019s why Shakespeare wrote his plays.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s success has also spurred interest in the novel. Sales of the book are up sevenfold and the novel climbed up the best-seller list in the U.K., cresting at number two. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s really complementary,\u201d says Higgs. \u201cSeeing this story in a theater makes a lot of people want to return to the book or read it for the first time. It\u2019s a virtuous cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2019, Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s agent sent emailed a group of producers and filmmakers to share a manuscript of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[309,93,311,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-293400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-chloe-zhao","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hamnet","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}