Popular YA franchises have tackled magicians, witches, wizards, vampires, werewolves, zombies, oh my, and so much more, but now the genre appears to be moving in the direction of straight-up dead people. The Wrap reports that Hailee Steinfeld has signed on to star in Scott Speer’s (Step Up: Revolution) Break My Heart 1,000 Times, a “supernatural romantic thriller” based on a novel by Daniel Waters and adapted by Jason Fuchs (Pan).
Amusingly billed as a cross between The Fault In Our Stars and The Sixth Sense, Waters’ novel and the subsequent film are “set after a cataclysmic event that has torn apart the barrier between our world and the next, leaving ‘Remnants,’ ghost-like essences of the deceased as part of everyday life. After years of quiet coexistence with the living, a Remnant sends a threatening message to a young girl, propelling her on a mission with consequences that will forever change the course of her life.”
The 2013 novel sounds vaguely The Leftovers-esque, as it picks up in post-“Event” world where people live alongside ghosts—like teen Veronica, the role Steinfeld will most likely take on, who is literally haunted by her dead-and-lovin’-it father—and everyone is forced to acclimate to a very new (and very weird) normal. The book’s Amazon page tells us a bit more about the plot, one that apparently involves something of a murder mystery and a possible plan to knock off a teen girl (Veronica?)
The film is “considered a springboard for a possible franchise,” though Waters has yet to pen a follow-up to his novel.
Steinfeld seems to be on something of a franchise kick as of late: She’ll next appear in Pitch Perfect 2, and she recently starred in Ender’s Game which, despite a mediocre box-office showing, could still spawn a sequel. The actress is also getting into the action biz with some gusto, including an upcoming turn in Barely Lethal, this year’s teen-assassin feature, and the Vince Vaughn-starring Term Life. She recently signed on for the cute-sounding Carrie Pilby, based on Caren Lissner’s novel of the same name about a child prodigy struggling to acclimate to the real world after graduating Harvard at age 19.
Just give us Pitch Perfect 3 and no one gets hurt, okay?