Millie Bobby Brown’s Novel Adaptation Nineteen Steps Lands Oscar-Winning Director Tom Hooper

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Bobby Brown's next film has landed a big director. The Stranger Things star is adapting her own debut novel called Nineteen Steps into a feature film and Oscar winner Tom Hooper has come on board. The feature film adaptation is still in development but it looks likely that it will land at Netflix, as a majority of the actress' projects have landed there. The WWII novel was published in 2023 and follows an 18-year-old living in wartime England in East London and trying to survive. Brown based the story on the experiences of her grandmother. Find out more about Nineteen Steps.

Tom Hooper joins Millie Bobby Brown's Nineteen Steps

According to a report in Deadline, The King’s Speech and Les Misérables filmmaker Hooper is stepping in as director. Anthony McCarten, who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and The Theory of Everything, will adapt Brown's novel. The actress and her husband Jake Bongiovi are producing the film with Jonathan Eirich for Rideback. The production company Ridgeback also backed Lilo & Stitch and Netflix’s series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The novel, which made it to the New York Times bestseller list, was co-written by Brown and Kathleen McGurl and it revolved around the life of a teenager named Nellie Morris in East London during World War II. Living in Bethnal Green, Nellie has to face harsh times, including the threat of bombings, rationing, and being separated from loved ones. She also strikes up a romance with American airman Ray. Nineteen Steps also includes the real-life Bethnal Green Tube disaster when 173 died in a stampede after seeking shelter underground during an air raid. Hooper, who also directed The Danish Girl, is also lined up to direct Photograph 51, starring Natalie Portman. The film is an adaptation of the Anna Ziegler play about British scientist Rosalind Franklin, who first unveiled the hidden structure of DNA.

Millie Bobby Brown’s upcoming projects

After completingStranger Things in December 2025, Brown was set to star as Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug in her biopic Perfect. However, the actress reportedly left the project over creative differences. Later this year, she will return as the titular heroine in Netflix's Enola Holmes 3 starring Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter and Louis Partridge.

She also has the rom-com Just Picture It with co-star Gabriel LaBelle, also for Netflix. The actress has yet another project with Netflix, as she is attached to lead the supernatural series Prism as Cassie, a young woman who can communicate with ghosts.