Legendary Entertainment has acquired the film and television rights to The Alchemist, the 1988 novel by author Paulo Coelho. A film adaptation is now in the works, with a screenplay to be written by Jack Thorne. Legendary is working with Sony’s TriStar Pictures and Palmstar on the project, which will be distributed by TriStar.

Originally written in Portuguese, The Alchemist traces the saga of Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd who sets out on a journey to find treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. It is described by Legendary as a tale about “a young man who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories can, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams.”

Thorne wrote the scripts for Enola Holmes and its sequel Enola Holmes 2. Among his other screenplay credits are Wonder, The Aeronauts, and The Secret Garden. He also wrote the stage version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Thorne also served as the showrunner for HBO Max’s His Dark Materials.

There had been several earlier attempts to create a screen adaptation of the novel. Laurence Fishburne was hoping to direct a script written by Scott McGehee and Dave Siegel, and Idris Elba was reportedly going to star in the film, but plans were scrapped when PalmStar Media purchased rights to the novel in 2016. Then, in July 2021, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith announced plans to create an adaptation with Netter Films, but nothing came of this attempt either.

It’s still unclear who will be directing this new adaptation, and when production might begin.

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