Disney has won the rights to Melissa de la Cruz’s (The Descendants, Blue Bloods, Witches of East End) upcoming YA book 29 Dates, which will be produced for the streaming platform Disney+, Deadline has confirmed. Cruz’s novel will be published on December 18 by Inkyard Press/Harlequin.
29 Dates centers on a Korean exchange student who moves to the United States. 16-year old Jisu Kim struggles against the academic pressure exerted by her ambitious parents, who also set her up on a number of seon (matchmaker) dates to meet appropriate young men from Seoul to San Francisco. The book has been compared to Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and lauded for its depiction of characters from a range of ethnicities as well as its accurate cultural details of Korean life, along with its surprise romantic ending.
The Gotham Group will produce the project. The company recently wrapped on the feature film version of Stargirl for the streamer. Based on the novel by Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl was directed by Julia Hart and written by Kristin Hahn.
