Wattpad Webtoon and Italys Leone Film Group to Adapt Hit Teen Novels The Locker Exchange

Publish date: 2024-07-18

Wattpad Webtoon Studios, the entertainment arm of the user-generated fiction and comics entertainment outfit, and Italy’s Leone Film Group have announced two new adaptations based on hit young-adult Wattpad novels.

Taiwan-based author Ann Rae’s romantic mystery “The Locker Exchange,” which is set in a U.S. high school and has over 26 million reads globally on the Wattpad platform, is set to become an English and Italian-language feature film. And “Love Me, Love Me” by Italian writer Stefania S, which has scored 12 million reads in Italy, is to be adapted into an Italian-language series by Leone’s Lotus Production unit. 

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The two new adaptations expand on an existing deal that Leone inked last year to co-develop a slate of films for the Italian and international marketplace based on original fiction stories from Wattpad. That pact came after the two companies partnered to make a movie based on Blair Holden’s “The Bad Boy’s Girl,” which, with 224 million reads on the platform, is among the most popular stories on the storytelling platform. That project has yet to go into production.

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In recent years, web stories and webcomics have fueled dozens of film and TV series adaptations. As media properties, such digital IP is attractive as the stories and webcomics have built-in audiences and continuing fandom, while the platforms they are hosted on possess unique insight in user demographics, geographies and engagement. Besides Leone, Wattpad Webtoon Studios has partnerships in place with some of the top entertainment companies in Europe including pan-European indie giant Fremantle and Mediawan in France.

In “The Locker Exchange” – which besides being available online, was published by Wattpad Books in 2022 – the protagonist named Bryn, who is a high-school junior, is assigned a new locker where she finds a note from a secret admirer. She’s firmly convinced that the note is from the most popular boy in school named Sterling on whom she has a crush. Then Sterling goes missing and Brynn teams up with Kyler, the school’s resident bad boy and Sterling’s best friend, to figure out what happened.

Wattpad Studios head Aron Levitz, David Madden and Lindsey Ramey will produce “The Locker Exchange” for Wattpad Webtoon Studios alongside Raffaella Leone and Andrea Leone for Leone Film Group.

Italian writers Marco Borromei (“Game of Love”); Michela Straniero (“Out of My League”); and Alessandra Martellini (“Don Matteo”) are attached to write the film’s script. 

In “Love Me, Love Me” 16-year-old June becomes entangled in a love triangle with two boys who are best friends and uncovers hidden truths. The book will come out in paperback in Italy on May 2. 

The “Love Me” series will have the same production credits as the “Locker Exchange” movie. Italian writers on the show are Daniela delle Foglie (“Summertime”), Serena Tateo (“Sbratz”) and Veronica Galli (“Tutta colpa di Freud”). 

Bego Robles from Wattpad Webtoon Studios will oversee both projects.

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