Make it a Movie: The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

In our Make it a Movie section we play the role of movie producers and map out the movie production. We’ll be honest, The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes wasn’t our favorite book, but I do think it would make for an interesting movie or tv show. The Inheritance Games is basically if Blank Check + an Agatha Christy mystery novel had a child. Impoverished high schooler Avery Grambs is randomly is left a multi-billion dollar fortune by Texas mogul Tobias Hawthorne. With the money, however, comes unwanted notoriety, and the requirement that she lives in the Hawthorne House for a full year.  As Biggy once said ‘Mo Money Mo Problems‘. Instead of doing literally whatever she wants with the money and living the dream life, Avery gets entangled in the mystery of why she was given the money, and ends up in a love triangle with the Hawthorne boys.

Production Notes: The last update on a potential movie/tv show came over two years ago as it was reported that Amazon was set to make a TV Series out of the books. Josh Berman’s (CSI, Gordita Chronicles, Bones) production company was attached. No updated news since then, so in the meantime we’ll help cast potential movie/show.

Based on: Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Romance

Logline: Blank Check + Knives Out

Proposed Casting for The Inheritance Games

Avery Grambs – Avery takes the idea of rags to riches to a whole new level, going from sleeping in her car to sleeping in a mansion with multiple servants. Avery is a self-sufficient, straight-A student, who has been dealt a bad hand in life, but turns that bad hand into a royal flush. We need a young actress with star power, one who can be carry a franchise and be believable as a rags to riches type. We went with Millie Bobby Brown. What young actress has more going for her than Millie? This role makes too much sense for here (shout out to super fan Steph for the recommendation).

Jameson Hawthorne – One of the brothers that ends up in the love triangle. Jameson has a bit of a dark side, but mostly he loves puzzles, games, and above all else winning. I honestly think that the band One Direction should just reform to play all of the brothers, but if not, we should at least get one of them in this movie. We went with dark haired, green eyed heartthrob Harry Styles. He’s already shown off his acting chops, but adding him would definitely help ticket sales.

Grayson Hawthorne  – The third leg of the love triangle, Grayson is the second eldest brother and the more serious one of the brothers. Initially Grayson is described as a bit too business like and seems way too mature for Avery, but eventually his hard exterior softens. Went with another heartthrob for this role and someone that has exploded as of late in Austin Butler. He fits the character description and may be a little bit older but that is what his character calls for anyway.

Xander Hawthorne – The youngest of the Hawthorne brothers was our favorite character in the book. Between his scone obsessions’ (a top 5 coffee snacks), his killer robots, and shrewd crypto investing skills Xander was just a fun character to root for. Plus, no spoilers, but his grandfather left him with one of the most important secrets. Xander is one of the more eccentric brothers so we decided to go with someone a bit eccentric in his own right and someone with a prestigious family as well in Jaden Smith. He hasn’t done a ton of acting as of late, but this would be a good role to get him back in the swing of things.

There are a ton of other characters we could cast here but for now we’ll stick with these. Let us know what we got wrong and who we’re missing!

Check out our Episode on The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes or our Book Club Questions.