Amazon MGM Developing Live-Action Scarlet Morning, With Kate Herron Set to Direct

Amazon MGM Studios is developing a live-action movie based on Scarlet Morning, the fantasy novel by ND Stevenson, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which reported the news on 2 November 2026. "In development" means the studio is planning the film, and filming has not been reported as started.

Kate Herron is set to direct the movie and produce it through her own company, Bag of Rats. She is also co-writing the screenplay with Kari Granlund. Herron directed the first season of Disney+'s Loki, and she is attached to direct a feature version of The Sims at Amazon MGM too.

The producing team has three names on it. Roy Lee is set to produce for Vertigo Entertainment, Darlene Caamaño Loquet for Oh My Darlin' Entertainment, and Aubrey Davis for Bag of Rats. Granlund and Vertigo's Jakob Pollack are executive producing, a credit that usually covers oversight and financing rather than day-to-day work on set.

The story follows two orphans who join a crew of pirates. Their adventure aims to help save the land known as Dickerson's Sea. The book came out through Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, as a middle-grade illustrated novel. Middle-grade books are aimed at readers roughly eight to twelve years old.

Stevenson has a track record that already crosses from books into screens. He wrote the 2015 graphic novel Nimona, which was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Netflix later adapted it into a film that earned an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. Stevenson was also creator and showrunner of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power for DreamWorks Animation Television, and created the Boom! Studios comic series Lumberjanes.

For the two companies behind the film, the project is a first. Scarlet Morning is the first project for Kate Herron's Bag of Rats banner, and the first feature project for Darlene Caamaño Loquet's Oh My Darlin' Entertainment. A banner is simply the production company's name on the film.

Adaptations like this one often start with a book's readers already in place. Scarlet Morning arrives on screen with a built-in audience of younger readers, an illustrated edition that already shows its world, and a creator with a string of earlier hits. The studio has not announced a release date, and no cast has been named.