Today Inés Martínez García writes an opinion about the books that are adapted on platforms such as Netflix.

Some time ago we talked about the reading club that the audiovisual platform was going to carry out with the books that they have decided to script and produce on their platform. But who chooses the novels that we see on channels like Netflix, HBO or other platforms?

Who and how are these novels chosen? What deals do they make with the authors? Are the endings the same or is there a plot twist? I have read in Esquire some comments from Verónica Fernández, director of Netflix Original Content, and Carlos Montero, showrunner, screenwriter, and writer, in which the media has discovered part of the ins and outs of a relationship that comes from far away but that has changed radically in recent years with the boom in platforms.

Since Netflix, in particular, and all platforms in general shook the market with their new business model, the flow has widened in a completely unprecedented way. The number of productions has soared and the need to feed on stories that we are already familiar with has proven more pressing than ever. Of course, the pandemic has done a lot to make this happen, and also because this type of platform has a catalog of spectacular series and films, most of them coming from books written in the past or present.

We have recently seen the announcements of adaptations of classics such as “Pedro Páramo” by Juan Rulfo, or miniseries such as “An Astrological Guide for Broken Hearts,” originally written in Italian by Silvia Zucca (Penguin Random House), and Carlos Montero's novel “El desorden que dejas” (Espasa) (The Mess You Left Behind) and “Valeria” by Elisabeth Benavent (Penguin Random House).

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