Zoe Kazan’s ‘East Of Eden’ Adaptation Manifests Audience Growth Comparable To ‘Adolescence’ — Here’s How It Happened

EXCLUSIVE: Zoe Kazan‘s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic American novel East of Eden is slowly but surely staking its claim on Netflix.

The series has now amassed 4.4x its debut-week views, Deadline can reveal exclusively, growing from 6.5 million views in Week 1 to a cumulative 28.9 million views in Week 4.

Per Netflix, only Adolescence has a higher 4-week multiple (4.7x) among the 11 limited series since 2025 that charted in the English-language Top 10 all four weeks. This includes comparable limited series and adaptation titles such as His & Hers, Lord of the Flies, I Will Find You, Vladimir, and Death by Lightning.

“I think we have this collective misconception that ‘great books’ are boring and dusty, like eating our spinach. But most books that we consider to be classics have stood the test of time for a reason–because they are gripping, emotional, and full of the wild drama of being human. One of my aims in making this show was to lower the barrier to entry a little, to allow more people to feel that East of Eden could hold something powerful specifically for them,” Kazan tells Deadline.

That said, she acknowledges that regardless of the care that went into crafting the series, “there’s no guarantee that people will actually watch.”

East of Eden debuted on October 1 and found its way to the top of the English-language charts that week with just four days of availability. It was a promising if soft start for the series, given that its 6.5 million views made it the lowest No. 1 opening since the end of March. That said, it has steadily continued to pique curiosity, hitting the Top 10 in 86 countries. As of Week 4, it holds onto the No. 6 spot on the Top 10 with 3.6 million views.

That is not too shabby for a period drama adapted from a 74-year-old novel. Speaking of, the Netflix adaptation has also fueled interest in Steinbeck’s original work. Per Penguin Classics, book sales jumped nearly 200% across all formats, and the publisher went back to press 25 times this year to keep up with the physical demand.

The book reached No. 1 on Amazon’s Best Sellers list and No. 21 on USA Today’s Best Sellers list, and Spotify first-time audiobook listens are up 156%.

“Given how beloved and timeless these classics are, the bar is high when considering an adaptation. For me, it starts with a creator who has a singular point of view and a genuine, personal connection to the material,” says Jinny Howe, head of UCAN scripted series at the streamer. “For East of Eden, that creator is Zoe.”

Kazan is considered an emerging voice, but this isn’t her first rodeo. Prior to East of Eden, she wrote two films that were independently produced, Wildlife and Ruby Sparks, and four plays. Still, it’s somewhat of a risk to hand the reins on an adaptation of this magnitude over to someone with less experience.

Adds Howe: “Zoe has lived with this novel her whole life, and she came in with a clear, unapologetic point of view on what the story needed to be today. She’s always envisioned Cathy at the center of this in a way that readers and viewers of the film haven’t been able to access and experience before, and that made this classic all of a sudden feel thrilling and revelatory. She was so clear-eyed and passionate about expanding upon Lee’s story in the series, and it’s been incredible to see how Hoon Lee’s powerful performance as the moral compass of the family has been embraced by audiences around the world.”

Netflix continues to bet on Kazan, who is now adapting Larry McMurtry’s classic Lonesome Dove novel as a series along with Jeb Stuart, her co-showrunner on East of Eden.

In explaining her philosophy for adapting such classic literature, particularly in this day and age as attention spans are waning and short-form content is all the rage, Kazan says she holds onto a piece of advice given to her by Wildlife author Richard Ford while she and her partner Paul Dano were adapting that novel.

“[He] told us, ‘My book is my book, and your movie will be your movie.’ I think he was giving us permission to follow our creative impulses, wherever they might take us. The book exists, and therefore doesn’t need to be duplicated; it can’t be, really, since the story is being expressed through a completely different medium,” she explains, citing some of her favorite adaptations that she thinks successfully thread the needle of loyalty to the source material and creative freedom like The Ice Storm, The English Patient, Romeo + Juliet, Clueless, Wonder Boys, Howards End, Ghost World, The Sweet Hereafter.

“And that’s just, like, some of the best of the 1990s/2000s,” she says. “I could go on. I love the experience of encountering material I’ve read before, through someone else’s lens, and seeing something new in it.”

East of Eden has so far been praised by critics and audiences, and even the chronically online crowd is taking note. Several social trends have taken hold, including audiences recreating their favorite Cathy Ames looks for Halloween on TikTok and the series audio trending on Instagram Reels.

As for what to expect from Netflix in light of this momentum, Howe says not much has changed.

“What I can tell you is that our philosophy remains the same. We’ll continue to back distinctive storytellers with a compelling vision and something to say, whether the source material is a novel published last year or one written a century ago,” she tells Deadline. “You’ll see that reflected in Pride and Prejudice this December and The Age of Innocence next year, each with its own distinct voice and interpretation of stories we all know and love. While we can’t predict how any of these projects will resonate with audiences, we’re proud of the approach and the creative ambition behind it.”