Canvas Media Studios options 4 YA novels for digital series

PanARMENIAN.Net - Startup Canvas Media Studios has teamed with New Leaf Literary & Media, the agency that reps Veronica Roth (“Divergent” series), to build a slate of digital series based on four young-adult novels by New Leaf clients, Variety reveals.

Titles covered under the deal include Cora Carmack’s “Losing It,” about a 22-year-old virgin in her last year of college who decides to finally change her status, which has sold nearly 1 million copies to date.

The four properties under the deal are Carmack’s “Losing It” series (William Morrow); Mindee Arnett’s “The Nightmare Affair” series (Tor Teen), set at a supernatural boarding school; Kelly Fiore’s “Thicker Than Water” (HarperTeen), about an honor student who resorts to selling drugs in an effort to pay for college tuition; and gothic romance-horror novels “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and sequel “Between the Spark and the Burn” by April Genevieve Tucholke.

Canvas Media will lead a team of filmmakers and storytellers to develop these properties for digital and traditional platforms.

The L.A.-based studio was formed last year by David Tochterman, who most recently was a digital strategy consultant for PBS, ABC and Starz, and Bernie Su, a writer-director-producer whose past projects include the “Lizzie Bennet Diaries,” “Emma Approved” and “Frankenstein MD” for PBS Digital.

“We are looking forward to tackling contemporary young adult novels after our previous success with this genre and demographic,” said Tochterman, Canvas Media’s CEO. “It’s a great match between New Leaf’s library and Canvas’ brand of creating series franchises for millennial audiences.”

Recent Canvas productions include StyleHaul’s first scripted series, “Vanity,” with Denise Richards and Karrueche Tran, sponsored by Maybelline, and the recently announced “Socio” starring India Eisley, which will be produced in partnership with Judy McGrath’s Astronauts Wanted.

Joanna Volpe, Suzie Townsend, and Pouya Shahbazian of New Leaf brokered the deal on behalf of the authors. Tochterman and Su will serve as executive producers on behalf of Canvas Media Studios.