Happy Old Year Netflix series adapts Marcelo Rubens Paiva novel
Netflix is adapting Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s Happy Old Year as a series, with Amaia Filmes and O2 Filmes producing.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
3 min read
The Happy Old Year Netflix series is moving ahead, with Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 1982 autobiographical novel set for a streaming adaptation, Deadline reported.
The project brings another work by Paiva to the screen after his later memoir Ainda Estou Aqui was adapted by Walter Salles into the Oscar-winning film I’m Still Here. Unlike that film, Happy Old Year is being planned as a series.
Amaia Filmes and O2 Filmes, the Brazilian production company associated with City of God, will produce the adaptation, according to Deadline. Netflix is expected to formally present the news during FLIP, the literary festival held in Paraty in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state.
What is Happy Old Year about?
Happy Old Year, published in Portuguese as Feliz Ano Velho, was Paiva’s first book. Deadline described it as a central work in late 20th-century Brazilian literature.
The autobiographical novel follows the aftermath of the accident that left Paiva tetraplegic when he was 20. The book is known for addressing disability, youth and coming of age through Paiva’s personal experience.
Paiva, who is also a playwright, screenwriter and journalist, said the book has already crossed several art forms before reaching streaming.
“Happy Old Year has already been adapted into a play, a musical and an opera, and now, finally, this work, which is so vital to Brazilian culture, is coming to streaming,” Paiva said, according to Deadline. “I’m thrilled to see another marriage between Brazilian literature and the audiovisual arts, bringing our stories from the pages to the screen.”
Who is making the Happy Old Year Netflix series?
Netflix’s Brazil scripted series team is attached to the project. Haná Vaisman, Netflix’s director of scripted series for Brazil, said the story’s power comes from joining a personal account with a broad theme.
“Happy Old Year is a story that manages to reach the universal theme of what it means to be young, from a highly personal account,” Vaisman said, according to Deadline.
She added that the adaptation aims to connect both with longtime readers and people discovering the story for the first time.
Producers Diane Maia of Amaia and Andrea Barata Ribeiro of O2 Filmes said in a joint statement that adapting the book means engaging with Paiva’s own path and the way he turned his experience into literature.
“There are stories we produce, and there are stories we feel a true need to tell,” Maia and Ribeiro said, according to Deadline. “It’s an honor, as well as a responsibility, to bring it to the screen with all the subtlety and truth it demands.”
Filming has not yet started, and further production information has not been announced. Deadline also noted that Netflix has expanded its Brazilian slate in recent years and opened a new office in the country earlier in 2026.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.