Upload and Code 8 Star Robbie Amell is set to both star in and produce Float, the film adaptation of Kate Merchant’s popular Wattpad teen-romance story. Wattpad, a digital platform for writers to publish new user-generated stories, has teamed up with Collective Pictures — formerly Colony Pictures — to produce Float. Merchant’s story is among the most popular teen romances on Wattpad with over 25.5 million reads.
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Float follows Waverly who, after her parents’ messy divorce, finds herself yanked from her comfortable life in Alaska to spend the summer in her aunt’s sunny beach town. However, Waverly soon begins to clash with one of her new neighbors, the arrogant, jaded beach bum, Blake (played by Amell). But things begin to turn when Blake learns Waverly can’t swim and he offers to teach her.
“Kate wrote such an incredibly touching and relatable love story,” Amell said in a statement (via The Hollywood Reporter). “I hope the fans are as excited as I am to see these characters come to life.”
“With a global fanbase and millions of reads, Float is an incredible story that audiences everywhere will fall in love with,” Aron Levitz, head of Wattpad Studios, said. “Like Wattpad, Robbie and the Collective team understand what it means to truly listen to audiences and leverage fan excitement to make hit entertainment.”
Collective Pictures was the studio behind hit sci-fi/fantasy film Code 8, a film which also starred Amell. Like Float, Code 8 also had its roots in fan demand. Following a Code 8 short film in 2016, Amell along with his cousin, Arrow star Robbie Amell launched a crowdfunding campaign to create a full-length feature. The campaign — which was intended to help secure additional funding by proving the film’s viability with fans — was successful and, ultimately, Vertical Entertainment signed on for worldwide release. Code 8 was released in December 2019 and debuted on Netflix in April 2020, quickly becoming the streamer’s top film at the time.
Collective Pictures’ Jeff Chan, Chris Pare, and Amell will produce Float alongside Wattpad’s Levitz and Jamie D. Greenberg. Wattpad’s Allen Lau will executive produce. Sarah Timmins of Black Birds Entertainment will also executive produce.
Are you excited that Float is getting adapted into a film? Is there a story on Wattpad you’d like to see turned into a movie? Were you a fan of Code 8? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Photo by Leon Bennett/FilmMagic via Getty Images.
