Hamburg-based Flappers Film & VFX, a production and post-production company led by Kai Steinmetz and Pascal Schröder, has secured the rights to the young adult romantic fantasy trilogy The Romeo and Juliet Society by Austrian author Sabine Schoder. The series of novels is known for reaching the bestseller list of Germany’s Der Spiegel after the books became popular through traction on social media through a TikTok phenomenon colloquially known as “BookTok” – where young adult literature thrives in conversations between users.

The episodic work will undoubtedly ride the waves of popularity of young adult series such as Maxton Hall – The World Between Us, produced by UFA Fiction, a six-part German-language series also adapted from a book. Maxton Hall became the most-watched non-US Amazon Prime Original series of all time and reached number one on the charts in 120 territories, also in part owing to BookTok. Schröder has described Schoder’s books as having a “cinematic quality”, leading to the company’s interest in the trilogy.

Flappers Film & VFX’s series adaptation will add to a long line of contemporary iterations of the Shakespearean story. Schoder’s literary Shakespeare adaptation, which is set in the modern day but with fantasy elements, was inspired by Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo and Juliet, which was already set in the present. The producers hope to combine the success of young adult stories with an “innovative fantasy approach” that will appeal to global audiences.

The young Hamburg-based company emerged onto the scene with its first feature in 2022, The Social Experiment (penned and directed by Schröder as a debuting writer-director), for which the outfit did production and VFX. The Social Experiment is known for being one of the first virtual productions for film in Germany, shot in an LED studio with backgrounds adapted in the Unreal Engine.

Steinmetz and Schröder have revealed that the project is currently in development, with more information about the casting and directorial team set to be announced in the coming months.