Adaptations of best selling novels are as built into the fabric of the movie industry as those extra couple of weeks for reshoots. With so many upcoming book to screen adaptations already heading our way, and with no sign of slowing, there’s a lot of different projects to keep track of in this well-worn realm. But once I’d heard that author Mona Awad’s Bunny was picked up for an adaptation by JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot, the project shot pretty high up my list of anticipated book movies. Let’s talk about why you should care about this new literary adaptation, and why this particular company is a good fit for the material.
What Bunny Is About (In A Spoiler-Free Nutshell)
If you’ve seen the news reported by Deadline, you’ve probably started to wonder just what Bunny is about. On one hand, it’s kind of hard to sell the book in a mere synopsis, as going in as cold as possible makes for the best experience with this novel. However, if you truly want a taste of what to expect, I’m about to give you a quick description of this BookTok favorite that’s been blowing up social media.
Bunny’s story centers around Samantha Heather Mackey, a Masters student who falls in with a popular group of women known as the Bunnies. A tight knit clique, they play like the English department version of The Plastics from Mean Girls, and they’ve invited loner Samantha into their inner circle.
As Sam becomes closer with her former enemies, things start to get weirder and weirder, in a tale of creative hobbies, and deadly consequences. Don't worry about the potential competition between Bunny and Mean Girls The Musical, as what we know about that Paramount musical is definitely worlds away from what you should expect with this collegiate horror story.
Why Bad Robot Is A Perfect Fit For The Bunny Movie
Admittedly the synopsis above is rather light, and spoiler-free. That said, the major reason J.J. Abrams’ production company is a perfect fit for Bunny is that it truly gets weird concepts. If there’s one thing the studio that helped bring Alias, Lost, and the Cloverfield franchise into the world knows, it’s how to bring weird stories to life.
Should that weird story offer a perfect opportunity to engage in using the Mystery Box style of storytelling, it would be even more cut out for the Abrams-style touch. While Bunny doesn't scale its weirdness to the scope that the projects mentioned above tend to cover, that mysterious method of teasing the story ahead almost feels custom made for this story.
That one word is probably the most appropriate one to describe where Bunny goes, while also being the mildest version of such description. Mona Awad’s dark tale takes quite a few interesting turns in 320 paperback pages, and without spoilers some of it is stuff Fringe fans would tip their hats to. So clearly, this is a firm example of the right project burrowing in the right home.
Bunny Was Almost A TV Series, But A One-Off Movie Suits The Story Better
This isn’t the first time the rights to Bunny have been optioned. Originally, there was going to be a TV series version of this novel, which would have seen Samantha Mackey’s story unfolding on the AMC network. This new optioning is another good sign that people even remotely interested in this story should get excited, as a cinematic incarnation is probably the better option.
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It’s not that there isn’t enough potential to sustain this story throughout several seasons of TV. Rather, looking at how lightning fast the narrative of Mona Awad’s prose happens to be, that momentum is better served with as few stops as possible. Containing Bunny into a feature film seems like a benefit, as this lore-light one-off is blazing fast, and should be experienced as one exhilarating ride. While what we know about Interview with the Vampire shows that the Anne Rice series is better set for an open ended run, Bunny is meant to fly as fast as the animal that gives the book its name.
OK, Seriously, How Weird Should I Expect Bunny To Get?
Oh Bunny, you’ve made it this far without any huge deep dive spoilers into what makes Bunny what it truly is. And by now, you’re probably tired of hearing how weird this book is without any backing to those claims. For those that are still looking for some more details to entice them into this world, but still without spoilers, I’ll do my best to oblige.
Throughout Samantha’s story, she undergoes a bit of a personality change when getting in close with the Bunnies. Also, while the bonding starts over some ribald writing in their collective “Smut Salon,” Bunny’s ring of rabble rousers graduate into something more horrific than drunken, dirty prose. Oh, and things eventually get pretty gory, with reality being questioned at increasingly regular intervals as time goes on.
One last thing before I let you go: there is quite a bit of animal death involved in Bunny. I know that some people are sensitive to that sort of thing, so I felt it only fair to throw that warning in before you run off to secure a copy. Even with that aspect in play, it shouldn't be hard for you to dig into the labyrinth that unfolds within Bunny.
Now you’re ready to dive into the world of Bunny. As of now, there’s no production start date, or any talent signed on to start developing this twisted tale into its feature film adaptation. Anything could happen from this point on, Bunny; so you’re going to want to keep your ears up and eyes open for any new information that comes up. In the meantime, there’s a wealth of 2023 new movie releases that could be on this same wavelength as weird. So don’t forget to take a look at what’s already on the board, before moving ahead to this.
Mona Awad's Bunny is available to purchase at Amazon.
