Florence Pugh & Mike Faist To Star In Netflix’s East Of Eden

It’s the film that made James Dean famous. Director Elia Kazan transformed the fourth part of John Steinbeck’s magnum opus, East of Eden (1952), into a blockbuster film in 1955, in which Dean played Caleb ‘Cal’ Trask, the wild, rebellious and existential son of Adam and brother of Aron desperate to earn his father’s approval. It earned Dean a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor after his shocking death in September 1955, six months after the film launched in cinemas. And now Netflix has greenlit a limited series adaptation of Steinbeck’s novel, directed by none other than Kazan’s granddaughter, Zoe Kazan. Here’s everything you need to know.

Netflix’s East Of Eden: Plot, Cast, Release Date

Steinbeck is perhaps best known for his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men, and best respected for Pulitzer Prize winning Grapes of Wrath (1939) which was cited when he won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature – but he considered East of Eden (1952) his magnum opus. ‘I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this,’ he famously wrote of his 700+ page behemoth, a multigenerational story tracing the trials of the intertwined Trask and Hamilton families in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of WWI.

His timeless work is now being adapted into a seven-part limited series for Netflix, directed by Zoe Kazan with a whole host of big name actors already on board. ‘In the process of bringing this family saga to life, the resonance of my own familial connection to the material has not been lost on me,’ Zoe, the granddaughter of East of Eden (1955) director Elia Kazan, tells Netflix. ‘But it is Steinbeck’s writing – personal, shocking, profound, and free – that has kept me enthralled by East of Eden since I first read the book as a young teen.’

It’s Zoe’s first major project as a writer, director and showrunner, with previous writing credits on Ruby Sparks (2012) and Wildlife (2018). As an actor, Zoe has appeared in Olive Kitteridge (2014), Clickbait (2021), She Said (2022) and more.

What Is East Of Eden About?

East of Eden is a multigenerational saga following the intertwined lives of the Trask and Hamilton families in California. The Netflix limted series will tell the story from the perspective of notorious ‘antagonist’ Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh). Cathy abandons her husband, Adam Trask (in fact, she shoots him in the shoulder), after giving birth to their twin sons Caleb and Aron, having never wished to move across the nation to California and having never wanted to be a mother in the first place. Instead, she adopts the name Kate Albey and becomes a sex worker at the city’s most respectable brothel, eventually murdering the madam so she can inherit and control the business.

While the 1955 film focussed on the end portion of Steinbeck’s novel, it seems there will be a larger focus on the start of the novel in Zoe’s seven-episode adaptation. ‘Zoe’s thoughtful and artistic vision pays homage to her grandfather’s revered film adaptation while beautifully honoring and introducing new audiences to a true canon of American literature,’ says Peter Friedlander, Vice President of Scripted Series at Netflix. ‘She is an inspiring, creative force and we can not wait for everyone to see what she and Jeb, alongside the brilliant cast led by Florence Pugh, bring to screen.’

The Cast

The cast of East of Eden is shaping up to be pretty star-studded. With the focus on Cathy Ames, Florence Pugh – who will next be seen in romance We Live in Time and Marvel film Thunderbolts – is in the starring role.

The roles announced so far are:

• Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames, wife of Adam
• Christopher Abbot as Adam Trask, husband of Cathy
• Mike Faist as Charles Trask, brother of Adam
• Hoon Lee as Lee, the Trask family’s Chinese-American servant

‘Working on this has been the greatest joy, and I am thrilled by the cast and crew we are assembling,’ says director Zoe. We will update this page when more cast members are revealed.

Release Date

It’s early days, so no news just yet on when we will see East of Eden. We anticipate we won’t see it before 2026.

When the release finally comes around, East of Eden will stream exclusively on Netflix.