2 months ago
EXCLUSIVE: Rebelle Media, nan institution down nan Hulu breakout Tell Me Lies and nan films Mr. Malcolm’s List and Long Weekend, is undergoing a strategical rebrand.
Founded by Laura Lewis successful 2018 pinch a attraction connected female-driven stories, Rebelle will now beryllium singularly focused connected romance, processing and producing love-led storytelling crossed film, tv and books.
As portion of nan relaunch, focused connected scaling Rebelle arsenic a romance-focused indie studio, seasoned imaginative executive Amanda Palley has joined arsenic Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, partnering pinch her longtime friend Lewis, who continues arsenic Chief Executive Officer. Palley comes complete aft much than a decade astatine CBS Studios and nan network, wherever she served arsenic Senior Vice President of Current Programs and caput of Current for CBS’s CW series.
“If we are going to build a emotion business, it’s fitting that I’m focusing connected that via my favourite emotion story, that of Amanda and me,” Lewis told Deadline. “Best friendships are besides existent emotion and Amanda and I met while babe executives astatine Seed and Fox respectively and person been concocting stories ever since.”
Per Lewis, she and Palley stock “a heavy emotion of books, of humanity, of empathy, of movie and television, of joyousness and escape.”
While “many opportunity that they are looking for their ‘soulmate,'” she recovered hers “in my champion friend and I can’t hold to spot what this business brings to life.”
In a associated connection connected nan reasoning down nan rebrand, Lewis and Palley explained, “We fell successful emotion pinch storytelling from an early property pinch a heavy emotion of books (hello Scholastic book fair!), movies, and TV shows that had america ‘shipping’ characters agelong earlier we knew nan meaning of nan word. Films ranging from Notting Hill to Bridget Jones’s Diary to 10 Things I Hate About You to Clueless and each nan measurement backmost to Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby drove america to want to beryllium successful this business. Television shows for illustration My So-Called Life, Friends, Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls, and Buffy nan Vampire Slayer drove america to want to beryllium successful this business. These films and tv shows person go rarer and rarer successful nan past 2 decades yet those audiences haven’t disappeared, arsenic nan BookTok arena proves. We want to bring backmost those quality, commercialized original stories arsenic good arsenic present adaptations for nan immense fandoms of everyone from Emily Henry to Christina Lauren to Abby Jimenez. Audiences want to feel, to commune, to dissect, to yearn. We want to arsenic good and are present to deliver.”
When it comes to nan projects you tin expect from Rebelle, deliberation emotion successful each its galore forms. A emotion communicative whitethorn halfway connected friends, family, ambition, identity, aliases magic; it whitethorn beryllium unrequited, transformative, lost, aliases complicated, arsenic good arsenic romanticist successful nan accepted sense.
Continuing to run nether its first-look tv woody pinch MGM Television, Rebelle anchors its adjacent section successful a brace of high-profile book adaptations: Christina Lauren’s The Paradise Problem, which Rebelle is processing arsenic a movie successful business pinch Popcorn Storm, and Rebecca Armitage’s The Heir Apparent, a caller Reese’s Book Club pick, which nan institution is processing arsenic an ongoing tv bid successful business pinch Pinky Promise.
An world bestseller that has sold complete 500K copies, Lauren’s The Paradise Problem follows a reluctant heir to a immense market luck who reunites pinch nan female he erstwhile joined retired of convenience — only to inquire her to clone that matrimony each complete again. As they’re drawn into nan seductive and ruthless world of his family, what originates arsenic a calculated statement quickly blurs into thing acold much dangerous: nan emergence of a emotion neither of them planned for.
Rebelle’s Lewis and Palley will nutrient pinch Popcorn Storm’s Tom Harper and Negeen Yazdi.
The Heir Apparent centers connected Lexi, a 29-year-old English female doing her aesculapian residency successful Hobart, who is surviving a normal, happy benignant of life — surviving pinch friends connected an idyllic vineyard, moving excessively hard, worrying astir her slope balance, hoping her aged car tin clasp retired different year, wondering if she’s falling successful emotion pinch her champion friend. But Lexi is not your mean doctor-in-training, she is really Princess Alexandrina, 3rd successful statement to nan British throne — albeit estranged from nan remainder of her family and surviving successful voluntary exile connected nan different broadside of nan world. But aft a unspeakable mishap involving her begetter and copy brother, she is abruptly nan heir apparent, first successful statement to nan throne aft her grandmother, nan Queen.
Rebelle’s Lewis and Palley will exec nutrient nan bid alongside Pinky Promise’s Jesse Burgum and Kara Durrett.
These 2 projects aside, Rebelle’s upcoming slate besides includes a movie adjustment of B.K. Borrison’s First Time Caller, useful based connected bestselling books by Sarah Adams and Jo Piazza, arsenic good arsenic original projects successful improvement pinch Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein), Pat Cunnane (Eternity), Lily Houghton (Forbidden Fruits), Elissa Down (Feel nan Beat), and more.
During her anterior tenure astatine CBS, Palley oversaw shows including Tracker, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane nan Virgin, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, Walker, and The Big Bang Theory. Previous positions successful intermezo see moving improvement for writers Al Gough & Miles Millar (Wednesday, Smallville) and character Hugh Jackman. She began her profession astatine CAA and serves connected nan committee of Lupus LA.
Palley told america today, “I americium beyond thrilled to partner pinch my champion friend to show stories for illustration nan ones we grew up on: stories pinch rich | characters, analyzable relationships, and affectional twists and turns that will time off you gasping and past rushing online to talk pinch like-minded fans. Laura and I person spent nan past 20 years talking astir our shared book, television, and movie obsessions – it seemed inevitable that we would 1 time make this business official. It’s nan cleanable happy ending to 1 measurement of our communicative arsenic good arsenic nan cleanable first section of nan next.”
Prior to founding Rebelle Media successful 2018, Lewis was a media finance supplier astatine CAA, wherever she worked connected films that grossed complete $2B astatine nan worldwide container agency including Dallas Buyers Club, The Imitation Game, Bachelorette, Sleeping pinch Other People, Begin Again, Still Alice and The Butler, among galore others. She began her profession arsenic an executive for Twentieth Century Fox and Edward Saxon Productions and is simply a personnel of nan Producer’s branch of nan Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, BAFTA, and nan Television Academy, arsenic good arsenic a founding personnel of Producers United.
Rebelle is repped by Linda Lichter astatine Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Feldman; The Paradise Problem writer Lauren by Holly Root of Root Literary, Matthew Sugarman of Weintraub Tobin, and WME; and The Heir Apparent‘s Armitage by WME and Gaby Naher of The Naher Agency.
