Sony, Wattpad develop YA projects

Sony Pictures Television and Canadian digital storytelling platform Wattpad have revealed details of the first projects to emerge from their coproduction partnership.

Aron Levitz

The two companies agreed a deal in April last year that allowed Sony a first look at new Wattpad stories.

The first two to be developed are Jessica Cunsulo’s She’s With Me, which is one of the most popular stories on Wattpad with more than 140 million reads from fans around the world.

The print version of She’s With Me, from Wattpad Books, was released on January 7 and debuted in the top 50 of three Teen & YA categories on Amazon. The story follows a student who starts at a new high school after entering a witness protection scheme.

HJ Nelson’s The Last She, meanwhile, has more than 12 million reads on Wattpad and is one of the most-read science fiction stories on the platform.

It is set after a devastating plague wipes out every female on Earth except one. After three years of surviving alone, she must leave her mountain home and venture into the tribal world forged from the collapse of civilisation in search of a clue her father promised could spell hope for the human race.

Wattpad Studios’ Aron Levitz and Eric Lehrman will be executive producers, along with Wattpad’s Lindsey Ramey as co-executive producer.

Wattpad currently has nearly 50 TV and film projects in development with various studios and has been involved in popular young-adult dramas such as Netflix’s The Kissing Booth and Hulu’s Light as a Feather.