Exclusive Interview
‘Legend’ Author Marie Lu Shares New Update on TV Show Adaptation
It’s been over a decade since a screen adaptation of Marie Lu’s Legend was first announced. Since then, the project has jumped homes a couple of times, most recently in 2021. It was revealed then that the author would join forces with Bound Entertainment, turning the dystopian book into a TV series.
When Lu visited Swooon’s New York Comic Con suite on October 10, she offered a rare update about the YA adaptation. “Honestly, there’s not much that I can say for it,” she admitted. “I think that a lot of stuff got put on the back burner because of the strikes and all of that and the pandemic and so on. But we will see.”
Lu, who recently published her adult romance Red City, has already penned the pilot script with Supergirl and Teen Wolf screenwriter Lindsay Sturman. “She’s so great and has been holding my hand through the whole thing,” the author explained. Sturman doubles as executive producer, alongside Bound Entertainment’s Samuel Yeunju Ha and Jamie Lai.
“Lu and Sturman’s creative vision, talent, and ambition for the project aligns with our mission to foster and push forward stories featuring and from diverse creators,” Ha told Deadline in 2021. “Bound Entertainment is excited to work with the pair to realize the massive potential within Legend and bring this long-awaited story to its fans and viewers around the world.”
Legend, which is the first in a trilogy, is set in futuristic version of the western United States. It’s become the Republic, a corrupt nation at war with its neighbors. The book follows foils June and Day, who have been aged up from 15 to 18 in the adaptation. June is an military prodigy from the Republic’s wealthiest district, while Day lives on the streets as a Robin Hood-like criminal. When June’s brother is murdered, Day becomes the prime suspect, and they begin a game of cat and mouse.
“Writing the pilot was incredibly different from writing a novel and a real learning experience for me because it’s such a different way of telling a story,” the author told us. “You have to write something that gives enough room for the director and actors and cinematographer and everybody else involved to put in what they are doing.”
Lu recalled putting novel-like descriptions in the script at first. “You know, you don’t need a paragraph of internal rumination in a screenplay because the actor is going to do that,” she continued. “And meanwhile, I’m taking out stuff that they need to know visually. And so my screenwriter was constantly like, let’s remove this half a page where June is just thinking and replace it with, tell me what are her hands doing? Is she looking at Day? Like, what is happening in the moment? And I had to kind of rewire my thinking for that.”
Having completed the pilot script, the author remains “hopeful that someday something will be made.”
