Bestselling novel Yesteryear draws intense backlash; Anne Hathaway stands by it

At the premiere of The End of Oak Street, Anne Hathaway said she read an early draft of Yesteryear about two years ago and felt an immediate pull to the story. She’s now attached to star in and produce the movie adaptation after Amazon MGM picked up the rights, and she isn’t blinking at the conversation swirling around the book.

Caro Claire Burke’s novel follows Natalie, an influencer devoted to old-school domestic ideals who’s suddenly dropped into the nineteenth century. As the book has taken off, debate has flared over its ending and its politics, plus online speculation about outside influence on the final text; Burke has denied claims that Hathaway secretly wrote it.

“I knew the intense feeling that I had for it, so it’s been really fun watching people discover it,” Hathaway said, noting friends who finished the book and immediately reread it.

“People are just loving it and I couldn’t be happier for Caro, what a triumph for her, ” she added in the same interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Film adaptation in motion

With Amazon MGM developing the screen version and Hathaway both starring and producing, she’s positioned closely to shape how Yesteryear makes the jump from page to screen. No additional creative details were announced alongside the rights deal.

Dinosaur survival in 2026

Meanwhile, Hathaway’s next big swing is a suburban survival thriller with dinosaurs. In The End of Oak Street—from writer-director David Robert Mitchell—a neighborhood is yanked out of its normal reality by a mysterious cosmic event, and the Platt family, led by Hathaway’s Denise Platt, has to navigate an unfamiliar landscape filled with prehistoric creatures.

• Anne Hathaway — Denise Platt
• Ewan McGregor — cast
• Maisy Stella — cast
• Christian Convery — cast
• Writer-director — David Robert Mitchell
• Producer — J.J. Abrams among the producers
• U.S. release — Warner Bros. will open the film in theaters and IMAX on August 14, 2026

The setup shares some DNA with Jurassic Park—ordinary people facing down prehistoric threats—but brings the danger home by trapping the action inside a suburban community. Warner Bros. has the movie dated for August 14, 2026.