What a whirlwind week for Amy DuBois Barnett.
Days before her debut novel “If I Ruled The World” lands on bookshelves across the country, Hulu acquired the rights to adapt the book into an hour-long drama series for the streamer. Variety first shared the news. Lee Daniels has been tapped to co-write the pilot episode of the series, and Barnett will serve as co-executive producer alongside Daniels and Emma Watts.
Based on Barnett’s own life as a trailblazing media pioneer, “If I Ruled The World” centers on Nikki Rose, a young magazine editor tasked not only with navigating the intersection of hip-hop, fashion and editorial culture during the Y2K era, but also with being the lone Black editor on staff.
A synopsis reads: “But after being told one too many times by her boss that ‘Black girls don’t sell magazines,’ she quits to take over Sugar, a struggling hip hop music and lifestyle magazine with untapped potential. “Thrown into an entirely new world of wealth, decadence, and debauchery, Nikki has just six months to save Sugar — and her own dreams.”
There’s plenty of drama and intrigue wrapped within the pages as the book has been teased as “a fast-paced, juicy debut that peeks behind the curtain at the cutthroat world of hip-hop music and the glamorous magazine scene in the late 1990s, written by the ultimate insider.”
Barnett has made history in newsrooms across the country. She has served as editor-in-chief of Ebony, Teen People and Honey magazines and deputy editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar.
“I can finally share this news: I’m developing the television adaptation of my debut novel, IF I RULED THE WORLD, with the brilliant, Oscar-nominated @leedaniels at Hulu!!,” she wrote on Instagram alongside a screenshot of the announcement from Variety.
“I wrote this novel seeing it cinematically from the start, and it’s surreal to now be shaping that vision for the screen. And my book comes out Tuesday. What a week!!”
“If I Ruled The World” lands on bookshelves and in stores on Jan. 27.
