‘The Vampire Diaries’ Author LJ Smith Novel ‘The Forbidden Game’ to be Adapted As TV Series

Warner Bros. Television has acquired the rights to The Forbidden Game trilogy of horror YA novels by LJ Smith for Greg Berlanti’s studio-based Berlanti Productions to adapt as TV series. Smith is the author of The Vampire Diaries novels, which were turned by WBTV into a hit TV series that aired for eight seasons on the CW.

 

WBTV/Berlanti Productions landed the rights to The Forbidden Game in a competitive situation. The series adaptation will be executive produced by Berlanti Productions’ Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and David Madden. Search is underway for a writer.

 

The Forbidden Game is a teen horror trilogy of novels in which a girl named Jenny and six friends enter a Jumanji-like game that drops them into different shadow worlds to fight off their worst nightmares, or die and have their souls forever imprisoned. The stakes are set by Julian, an enigmatic blue-eyed boy who moves freely between worlds. Jenny is determined to save herself and her friends, but when she starts to fall in love with Julian her loyalties are tested beyond anything she has ever experienced.

 

The Forbidden Game trilogy, published in 1994, consists of the books The Hunter, The Chase and The Kill.

 

WBTV adaptations of two other book series by Smith have gone on the air, The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle, which aired on the CW for one season.

The Vampire Diaries is a young adult vampire horror series of novels created by L. J. Smith. The story centers on Elena Gilbert, a young high school girl who finds her heart eventually torn between two vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon Salvatore.

 

The Vampire Diaries TV Series premiered on September 10, 2009, gave The CW its biggest series premiere, scoring 4.91 million viewers. Adding in DVR numbers, the ratings for the premiere swelled to an official 5.7 million viewers. In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that "as with several other shows that focus on the supernatural," The Vampire Diaries was "slightly more popular outside of cities. That said, the show's fandom has the smallest amount of spatial variation of all 50 shows".

 

The deal for the author was made on behalf of The Bent Agency by Hotchkiss Daily & Associates.

 

This News was first reported by Deadline