James Islington’s best-selling fantasy book series, Hierarchy, has landed at Sony for a feature film adaptation.
As the year winds down and Hollywood starts its annual holiday exodus, Sony Pictures has pulled off one of 2025’s biggest book deals by securing the movie rights to James Islington’s Hierarchy series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. There is currently no producer or director linked to the project, though Peter Kang and Louie Provost are managing the project on behalf of the studio.
Set in a magic-laced society reminiscent of the Roman Empire, the Hierarchy series centers on Vis, a young man concealing a perilous secret who is drawn into probing a suspicious death while infiltrating a dominant ruling power that drains the populace’s mental and physical energy, known as the Will.
As Vis digs deeper, he unravels plots that thrust him into a rebellion capable of shaking the entire world order. What begins as a bid to stay alive escalates into a vast struggle against a system built on exploitation, where “loyalty, power, and truth are all weaponized,” according to the official synopsis.
Sony landing the movie rights comes just as the Hierarchy series’ second book, The Strength of the Few, was released on November 11 and, fueled by buzz on social media, debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The book also topped bestseller lists in Australia, James Islington’s home country.
The first book in the Hierarchy series, The Will of the Many, was released in 2023 and won numerous awards, including the year’s Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel, honoring excellence in Australian fantasy.
In addition to the Hierarchy series, James Islington is also the author of The Licanius Trilogy, which cemented his reputation as a major voice in fantasy with a loyal following. He initially self-published the first installment, The Shadow of What Was Lost, in 2014 before securing a traditional publishing deal for the next two books, An Echo of Things to Come (2017) and The Light of All That Falls (2019). To date, James Islington has sold over 2.5 million total books.
