Wattpad Studios Announces Two Film Projects as Part of a New Development Fund to Fast-Track Hit Stories for Screens

Academy Award-nominated screenwriter David Arata will pen What Happened That Night and Angela LaManna is adapting The Hound    

TORONTO - May 14, 2020 - Wattpad, the global multi-platform entertainment company for original stories, announced today that it is developing film versions of the hit Wattpad stories The Hound and What Happened That Night. The projects are part of a new initiative that will see Wattpad finance early development for select TV and film projects. Wattpad’s Development Fund is the company’s latest move to verticalize its business, using data-backed insights to uncover incredible stories and trends that can be adapted for TV, film, and published via Wattpad Books--the company’s publishing division. 

Deanna Cameron’s What Happened That Night has more than 1.5 million reads on Wattpad and was published by Wattpad Books in 2019. Wattpad Books will also publish her next book, Homewrecker, in 2021. What Happened That Night will be adapted by Academy Award-nominated Children of Men screenwriter David Arata. Arata has also written screenplays for acclaimed films including Brokedown Palace and Spy Game. He recently wrote Netflix’s The Angel, and the sci-fi film Inversion, currently in pre-production. 

T.L. Bodine’s The Hound has more than 100k reads on Wattpad and won a Watty Award in 2018 in the Hidden Gems category. The story will be adapted by screenwriter Angela LaManna. LaManna comes to the project from The Haunting of Bly Manor, the second season of the Netflix horror sensation The Haunting of Hill House. Her credits also include the upcoming Netflix limited series Behind Her Eyes, Netflix and Marvel’s The Punisher series, Syfy’s Channel Zero and NBC’s Hannibal. 

Wattpad Studios’ Aron Levitz, Eric Lehrman and Lindsey Ramey will produce the projects. 

“Millions of people around the world have been inspired by the amazing, diverse stories and storytellers on Wattpad,” said Aron Levitz, Head of Wattpad Studios. “The Hound and What Happened That Night are two marvelous examples of high-quality storytelling that has captivated readers everywhere, while also tapping into cultural trends demanding more representation for women and marginalized communities. With these new film projects, we’re expanding our investment in early stage development, adapting incredible stories for new formats and helping them find new fans everywhere.” 

“What Happened That Night is a compelling combination of mystery, thriller and coming-of-age story,” said screenwriter David Arata. “Its nuanced portrait of a traumatized teenage girl struggling to uncover the truth represents an eloquent testament to the resilience of the human spirit. My job as a screenwriter will be to try to do justice to the book.”

“The Hound is an incredible narrative that combines the best elements of suspense and horror with a powerful story about a woman struggling to keep her family safe in the face of dark forces,” said screenwriter Angela LaManna. “I can’t wait to work with Wattpad to bring this story to screens everywhere.” 

What Happened That Night follows a woman named Clara after her boyfriend is murdered by her sister. The act sets Clara down a path that she would have preferred to forget, and in a desperate race to absolve her sister’s name, Clara advances ever closer to the dangerous secret of what really happened that night. 

In The Hound, antique store owner Liz brings home a Victorian taxidermy hound from auction, unwittingly unleashing dark forces on her wife and son. A series of strange and frightening occurrences begin to tear at the edges of a family under strain—tempting Liz to destroy the ones she loves. 

Wattpad currently has nearly 50 TV and film projects in development with studios around the world, including She’s with Me, The Last She and Death is My BFF with Sony Pictures Television; The Numbered and Kairos with eOne, Along for the Ride with Picturestart, Slow Dancing with Singapore’s Mediacorp and many others. 

Wattpad’s entertainment partnerships and projects span the US, Canada, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines. Wattpad adaptations have found enormous success in recent years, with projects like Wattpad’s film After, which was one of the top grossing indie films of 2019 and went on to win a People's Choice Award for Best Drama Film and three Teen Choice Awards. Wattpad, AwesomenessTV and Grammnet produce the Emmy-nominated series Light as a Feather for Hulu. Netflix’s international sensation The Kissing Booth also began as a Wattpad story, gaining 19 million reads and a Watty Award before being published as a book. To date, nearly 1,000 Wattpad stories have been adapted for TV or film, and published as books. 

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About Wattpad 

Wattpad’s vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories. Wattpad’s flagship app is the world’s leading social storytelling platform, home to a community of more than 80 million people who spend over 23 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories. Wattpad’s Story DNA Machine Learning technology allows the company to discover stand-out stories among the more than half a billion uploads that have been written on the platform. Wattpad Studios and Wattpad Books are transforming entertainment and publishing, using data-backed insights to turn Wattpad stories into books, films and TV shows. Wattpad Brand Partnerships help brands build deep engagement with Gen Z consumers. In 2020, Wattpad was recognized as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. The company is proudly based in Toronto, Canada. Learn more at: company.wattpad.com