Manori Ravindran International EditorScrapbook-style book series “The Popularity Papers” is getting the TV treatment.Amy Ignatow’s award-winning middle-grade novels will be adapted for the screen by Corus Media-backed Aircraft Pictures, the Oscar-nominated producers behind “The Breadwinner,” and Emmy-nominated production company WexWorks Media.The original book series, for which the first installment was selected as a top-10 title of 2011 by the American Library Association’s Rainbow Project and won the 2010 Gold Award from the National Parenting Publications Association, tells the story of two best friends, Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang, who are on a mission to crack the popularity code and dismantle the social construct for middle-schoolers everywhere.
Using the scientific method, the girls conduct social experiments on their peers with hilarious results. The producers are at work on a single-camera, live-action comedy series (26 x 30′) that will air on youth-centric Canadian channel YTV.
On top of the financial participation of the Canada Film Fund, BBC Studios will co-fund and handle international distribution rights for the show, which will begin shooting in the spring.“The Popularity Papers” is executive produced by showrunner Vivian Lin (“Holly Hobbie,” “Hudson & Rex”) and co-created for television by Lin and Amanda Brook Perrin (“The Croods: Family Tree,” “Fast Layne”).
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