French, Spanish … How Harlan Coben adapts to European sauce

If we have talked a lot about the “mega deals” of Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and Obamas with Netflix, we must not forget that the platform has also offered the American novelist Harlan Coben not for hundreds of millions of dollars but for 14… series! Which amounts to the same, even more.

These fictions are all adaptations of his books, already translated into some forty languages ​​and sold 75 million copies worldwide. Their other specificity is that they come from different countries.

After the british Intimidation, the polish In the woods or the spanish Innocent, the French Gone forever arrived on Netflix on Friday. The pitch is pure Harlan Coben (not always to say the same pitch): in order to find his missing fiancée without leaving any traces, Guillaume will have to face his past, and return to that night when his big brother Fred and his first love Sonia are dead …

“It is not me who imposes my choice”

If the writer is used to declining the recipe for his success in his novels, he is not the one who adapts his stories to series. Surprise: Harlan Coben does not even decide which books to adapt, as he explains to the Journal du dimanche: “It is not me who imposes my choice, but the writers in different countries who share their desires with the platform. to put my stories into pictures. In Spain, for example, Oriol Paulo said he was interested in Innocent. I liked the approach of the thriller in his cinema, and his vision to breathe new life into the novel thrilled me. “

For Gone forever, the impetus came from David Elkaïm and Vincent Poymiro, the duo of screenwriters fromSo be they and In therapy. “I did not know them, admits Harlan Coben, still in the JDD. But the French team at Netflix praised their talent to me, and I found their idea of ​​bringing the plot to Nice appealing. The film Do not tell anyone, by Guillaume Canet, and the series One chance too many and Just a look were set in Paris, and even though I love this city, I know (…) how there are other beautiful places to discover. The beauty of the landscape and the blue of the Mediterranean skillfully contrasted with the darkness of the plot, and I said banco. “

Harlan Coben learned to make series in France

The writers not only changed the location of the action, but also parts of the plot, as readers of the book, or only the back cover, may have discovered. No problem for Harlan Coben: “you have to betray a novel to succeed in a series”, he assures us. And take as an example his adaptation work with Guillaume Canet on Do not tell anyone fifteen years ago.

It was there, in France, that it all began. And more precisely, it’s on TF1, with One chance too many and Just a look, that novelist Harlan Coben has “become” a screenwriter and series producer, aided by an army of local writers and directors. This may also be why Gone forever looks like a TF1 series. No more no less.

Despite its promising cast (Finnegan Oldfield, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Guillaume Gouix, Garance Marillier) and the directing of Juan Carlos Medina, Gone forever never goes beyond the standards of the all-comer of French fiction. So she looks at herself without displeasure but without passion.

Yet other Netflix adaptations have shown that it is possible to make a difference. In the woods bet everything on the atmosphere, to the detriment of the intrigue it is true, and, above all, Oriol Paulo reappropriated and transcended the original material ofInnocent to offer the best thriller to twists which he has made the specialty of with The Accused.

When will we see an adaptation in the United States?

There remains an enigma: why is the American novelist not a prophet in his country? There have indeed been attempts, including an adaptation of Gone forever for NBC channel or movie Do not tell anyone with Liam Neeson, but to no avail. His next Netflix series come from England (Don’t go away) and Poland (Without a word). At the time of the British series and original creation The Five, Harlan Coben explained, “The real question is who you are going to work with. Now, I don’t know if any Americans want to work with me. Finally, I think I have more freedom in France or the United Kingdom than I will have in the United States. “