SYNOPSIS Everyone Deserves a Great Love Story. but for Seventeen
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SYNOPSIS Everyone deserves a great love story. But for seventeen-year old Simon Spier it’s a little more complicated: he’s yet to tell his family or friends he’s gay and he doesn’t actually know the identity of the anonymous classmate he’s fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying and life-changing. Directed by Greg Berlanti (Everwood, The Flash, Riverdale), with a screenplay by Elizabeth Berger & Isaac Aptaker, and based on Becky Albertalli’s acclaimed novel, LOVE, SIMON is a funny and heartfelt coming-of-age story about the thrilling ride of finding yourself and falling in love. THE BOOK LOVE, SIMON was adapted from Becky Albertalli’s young adult novel Simon vs The Homo Sapien’s Agenda. Published in January 2012, the book won the William C. Morris Award for Best Young Adult Debut of the Year and was included in the National Book Award Longlist. Albertalli never imagined that her book would be published let alone become an award-winning 1 bestseller and now a major motion picture: “I was a psychologist when I wrote the book,” she says. “I was the mother of a one-year-old, now four-year-old. I was writing during his nap times. I had always wanted to write a book, and decided I would give it a try. I don’t know where my idea for the plot came from, but the characters had been kicking around in my head for some time. I had this image of a messy-haired, gay kid in a hoodie, and that turned out to be Simon. I’ve worked a lot with kids who identify as LGBTQ or gender nonconforming, and they are unquestionably some of the bravest people I’ve ever met. As a psychologist, I’m painstakingly careful not to borrow my clients’ stories for my fiction – but in a general sense, I’m very much inspired by all the teenagers I’ve been lucky enough to know and work with.” Producer Wyck Godfrey, and Marty Bowen, his partner at Temple Hill Entertainment, have become adept at recognizing literature that is ideal for screen adaptation. Having produced the phenomenally successful Twilight series and the adaptations of The Fault in Our Stars and The Longest Ride, they saw the big screen potential of Albertalli’s story. “We produce a lot of movies in the young adult space,” says Godfrey. “Every time, you're trying to find something new and different and fresh that feels like it hasn't been done before. And fundamentally, we'd never seen a high school romantic comedy with a gay teenage lead. And so that was the thing with the book: we all read it and said, ‘Oh my God, nobody's done this.’ Nobody's just unabashedly openly made a movie about a kid that's going through the process that every gay individual goes through of figuring out their identity and when they should come out. And played it against this great, mysterious, evolving romance. With this anonymous guy online. And the book was hilarious. And the character of Simon was such a winning, lovable, kind of embraceable character that we thought it was worth developing.” 2 THE FILM In LOVE, SIMON sixteen-year-old and not openly gay Simon Spier starts a secret email flirtation with another closeted classmate. But when one of his emails falls into the wrong hands, Simon’s secret is at risk of going public. He finds himself being blackmailed by Martin, his socially awkward, yet overtly confident classmate: Martin believes that with Simon’s help, he could get a date with the beautiful Abby Suso (Alexandra Shipp). And if Simon won’t play wingman to Martin… well, his sexual identity might just become public knowledge. Worse, the privacy of ‘Blue’, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be public too. With his tight-knit group of friends branching out in new directions, his email correspondence with Blue growing more significant every day, and Martin’s potential threat hanging over him, Simon starts to feels out of control. Now he has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or losing a shot at happiness with a guy whose real name he doesn’t even know. Producer Pouya Shahbazian was the first to board the project, “Becky Albertalli’s book agent called me when he sold the book to Harper Collins. I read it and loved it and became involved at a very early stage.” “I think we’re always looking for stories that are relatable,” adds Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen. “Even as adults, you’re looking for things that remind you of your high school experience and feel authentic and relatable. And the journey of seeing somebody have to come to a realization that they need to truly be themselves by admitting their sexuality is a fairly universal thing today. And the way that was approached in the book is the way we approached it in the film, which is to treat it like your first kiss or the challenges of asking out the girl that you 3 care about. Let's essentially treat coming out of the closet as a normal, everyday, high school decision, which it is for many people.” Conversations with Temple Hill, including with one of the film's producers, Isaac Klausner, reassured Albertalli that her beloved book was with the right team to usher it to the big screen. "My initial conversations with them convinced me that they understood these characters and the story that they are trying to tell,” confirms Albertalli. “They had a feel for the spirit of it. The name ‘John Hughes’ was thrown around a bit: the humor, and heart, of his films and striving for that balance. So I knew they wanted to make a film that would have been my favorite movie as a teenager!” “As someone who grew up on the John Hughes films, that was sort of the touchstone for me,” admits Godfrey. “When I pitched it to the studio, I said, ‘It’s kind of like Sixteen Candles but instead of Molly Ringwald it's a guy. And Jake Ryan's still Jake Ryan.’ It was like taking that beloved movie and contextualizing it for them to understand what's going to make it different. For me it's John Hughes meets John Green. It's a great mix of kind of classic, really relatable high school characters set in a fun, buoyant, world – the sort of the thing that John Hughes did so well when I was growing up but resonant to today's teenage audience.” “I think if John Hughes had continued to make his high school series of films, that it was just a matter of time before he would have broken down those barriers and done a film like this,” observes Marty Bowen. “So in a weird way this film is as much a part of the John Hughes legacy as it is anything else including Temple Hill.” 4 Screenwriters Elizabeth Berger (This Is Us) and Isaac Aptaker signed on to adapt Albertalli’s novel. Shahbazian says, “It’s a dream scenario to have screenwriters write a first draft of a screenplay the way that Isaac and Elizabeth did for LOVE, SIMON. The script came in, and it was in fantastic shape from day one. They were busy writing for television, and we had to wait for them to become available but it was worth the wait.” Albertalli adds “They wrote a first draft and gave it to me and asked if I had any notes. I had read it and sobbed, and downloaded every single song they mentioned. And I thought: ‘I’m supposed to give you notes?’ The script was perfect.” The author was equally delighted when director Greg Berlanti was brought on to help develop the script: “Greg Berlanti is in charge of a lot of superhero shows on television. He is a literal superhero. He is absolutely brilliant. I was already a fan of his before he was on board. When I heard he might be interested, I lost it.” Shahbazian adds, "Greg Berlanti is the most thoughtful, considerate person I have ever met. He brings that humanity in directing this movie. He is telling a very personal story for himself, and as we developed the script with Greg, there were many times where he was able to draw upon his own experiences to really add a whole nuanced layer underneath what was already a very fun, brilliant and nuanced story.” “Greg is an unbelievable creative force,” echoes Bowen. “And one of the defining characteristics about all of his work is the humanity of the characters. He just has a fundamental understanding of it. It is who he is, it’s part of his DNA.” Writer Isaac Aptaker agrees, "Working with Greg Berlanti has been a total dream for my partner Elizabeth Berger and myself. He has this incredibly rare blend of being confident and 5 wildly collaborative. This is also a very special story to him. The producers asked us to make a director wish-list. I have no idea if they ever looked at it or if it was just something to make us feel good, but Greg was at the top of that list." “This has been a really significant and fun experience for me,” acknowledges Berlanti. “I was a closeted gay high schooler, so it works on that level.