A ‘Sweet Valley High’ Series From the ‘Gossip Girl’ Producers Is in the Works

Francine Pascal’s extensive Y.A. book series Sweet Valley High is reportedly getting the CW treatment. As reported by Deadline on December 14, the network is currently developing a TV adaptation of the book series, which will be called Sweet Valley. The project is led by producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who are also behind The O.C., Gossip Girl, and Gossip Girl 2.0. 

Schwartz and Savage aren’t the only faces from the Gossip Girl reboot joining Sweet Valley. The adaptation will be written by Ashley Wigfield, who also serves as a writer-producer on HBO Max’s reboot. As Deadline notes, Wigfield was also a writer on Hulu’s Marvel’s Runaways and Looking for Alaska, both of which are projects fronted by Schwartz and Savage.

If you were a fan of the Sweet Valley High books, you probably know this isn’t the first time the series has been adapted for TV. Sweet Valley High, starring Brittany and Cynthia Daniel in the titular roles of identical twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, was also based on the books. The series aired from 1994 until 1997, spanning four seasons and 88 episodes. In 2017 it was also announced that the books were being turned into a movie, but it never came to fruition.

“Sweet Valley is the town everyone dreams of growing up in,” Deadline writes about the adaptation’s synopsis. “And there’s no better example of that promise than Elizabeth Wakefield. But when her missing twin sister Jessica miraculously returns, it reignites a lifelong rivalry. It falls to new girl Enid Ruiz to discover that someone (or something) is pulling all the strings, but can she convince the twins that putting their personal war aside is the only way to drag Sweet Valley’s dark roots into the California sunshine?”

Adapting popular books for TV is never an easy task, but it’s arguably even harder when the original material was written in the ’80s and ’90s. However, we know it can be done successfully. Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club also got adapted into a TV series, which hit Netflix in 2020 and has already been renewed for a second season.

This post originally appeared on Teen Vogue.