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Elijah is a freelance news writer at Polygon. He was an associate editor at The A.V. Club and Paste, and has been featured in outlets like Game Informer, Fanbyte, Unwinnable, and more. He loves media in all forms, from fighting games and horror flicks to slow cinema and visual novels. He's from the Greater Boston area.
Hatchet is ready to traumatize a new generation
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If you’re of a certain age, there’s a good chance you were traumatized by the young adult survival novel Hatchet after being forced to read it in elementary school. You were probably particularly disturbed by the part when the main character, Brian, found a dead body partially consumed by fish. Then you spent the rest of your childhood thinking about what you’d do if you were trapped in the wilderness.
According to Variety, Netflix is adapting Gary Paulsen’s 1987 novel, meaning many more kids are likely about to go through this formative experience
The film adaptation of Hatchet is being written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, who previously helmed the critically acclaimed films Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Roofman. Andrew Mittman will produce the movie; his company, 1.21, is behind Netflix’s Wednesday. The movie is being created in partnership with Paulsen’s estate, which has kept the book out of the adaptation market until now, and helped select Cianfrance for the project. Hatchet’s only adaptation thus far was the 1990 TV movie A Cry in the Wind.
Mittman pushed for the film at Netflix after the streamer's recent survival films Apex and Thrash both debuted with more than 36 million views this year.
What is Hatchet about?
Hatchet centers on 13-year-old boy Brian Robeson, who is stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness after his plane’s pilot suffers a heart attack. Left alone and without food, Brian’s only belongings are the clothes on his back and a hatchet his mother gave him. From here, Brian must learn to fend for himself by hunting and building a shelter. In his isolation, he reflects on his complicated relationship with his divorced parents.
In 1988, Hatchet won the Newbery Honor Award for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” In terms of length, the novel is well-suited for the screen, as its first edition is a lean 185 pages. Paulsen wrote four more Hatchet novels after the first: The River (1991), Brian’s Winter (1996), Brian’s Return (1999), and Brian’s Hunt (2003). While most of these are sequels, Brian’s Winter is a “what-if” scenario that extends Brian’s initial time alone in the wilderness.