EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios‘ feature adaptation of Yesteryear, the forthcoming novel by Caro Claire Burke, has found its writer in Emmy winner Hannah Friedman (Obi-Wan, Willow).
Anne Hathaway remains attached to star and will produce through her Somewhere Pictures banner, alongside Adam Shulman, as well as Suzan Bymel and Guymon Casady for Entertainment 360. Somewhere Pictures’ Jonathan Rice will exec produce alongside 360’s Alex Holcomb.
Entertainment 360 identified the hot novel last year through a literary scout, getting it in front of Hathaway and Shulman, with whom they teamed to take in to Amazon MGM Studios, winning a bidding war that involved three other studios. We reported exclusively on the auction last summer.
Yesteryear tells the story of Natalie, who seems to have the perfect life: a beautiful farmhouse on a working ranch, a handsome cowboy husband, six children, and eight million social media followers who adore her curated lifestyle. Behind the scenes, however, it’s a well-oiled machine of nannies, producers, and industrial-grade kitchen appliances. But when Natalie wakes up in a life that isn’t hers — transported back to 1805 — everything changes. Her home is no longer pristine, her husband is now a hardworking farmer, and her children are dirty and unruly. With no clue how she got there, and pregnant with her new “husband’s” child, Natalie must navigate the harsh realities of her new life, and figure out how to escape it.
Winning an Emmy for her work writing and co-executive producing The Muppets Mayhem, for which she also penned the theme song, Friedman is otherwise perhaps best known as a producer on Lucasfilm’s Obi-Wan miniseries as well as co-executive producer on Willow, the Imagine Entertainment fantasy series for Disney+. On the feature side, she’s developed multiple Pixar features, providing screenplay material for the recent Elio. She’s also adapted the New York Times bestselling Dork Diaries for Lionsgate, most recently penning an adaptation of Mona Awad’s bestseller Bunny for Bad Robot.
On the TV side, additional credits include Wet Hot American Summer for Netflix, Cameron Crowe’s Roadies, Super Fun Night, Showtime’s White Famous, About a Boy, Friend Me, Hit the Road, and Perfect Harmony. Friedman’s memoir, Everything Sucks, was adapted for TV, and her upcoming book of comedic essays, Oh F*** What Now, debuts with Random House in 2026. The scribe is repped by Curate, CAA, and Jeff Frankel.
