Another V.E. (a.k.a. Victoria) Schwab adaptation is in the works! Variety reports that The CW is developing a one-hour drama series based on City of Ghosts, Schwab’s novel published earlier this year by Scholastic. I. Marlene King, who developed and served as showrunner for Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars, will lead the series alongside fellow executive producer Lauren Wagner (The Following, Time After Time). The series follows Cass, who after a near-death experience discovers that she can pull back the Veil between the worlds of the living and the dead—and she’s not the only one with this gift.
More about City of Ghosts:
Ever since Cass almost drowned (okay, she did drown, but she doesn’t like to think about it), she can pull back the Veil that separates the living from the dead… and enter the world of spirits. Her best friend is even a ghost.
So things are already pretty strange. But they’re about to get much stranger.
When Cass’s parents start hosting a TV show about the world’s most haunted places, the family heads off to Edinburgh, Scotland. Here, graveyards, castles, and secret passageways teem with restless phantoms. And when Cass meets a girl who shares her “gift,” she realizes how much she still has to learn about the Veil—and herself.
And she’ll have to learn fast. The city of ghosts is more dangerous than she ever imagined.
The series will diverge from the book in at least one way, by aging up protagonist Cass from about twelve years old to early 20s (she is described as a “college grad”). Schwab addressed the change on Twitter, pointing out that adult-demographic-luring series like Stranger Things, with its ensemble of young protagonists, are the exception rather than the rule:
Also the team is amazing, the writers are amazing, and the odds of it actually happening, like all things TV and Film, are low, so let Cass have a moment.
— Victoria/V.E. Schwab (@veschwab) November 30, 2018
She also reassured readers that the book and TV series, if it happens, will exist as two different entities:
Evergreen reminder that no matter what happens with a TV show or movie adaptation, there's no way anything can "ruin" the book. The book is the book.
— Victoria/V.E. Schwab (@veschwab) November 30, 2018
Confession: Part of me is really, really glad/relieved that the show is designed to be so different from the book. Adaptation is a tricky thing, and the more different these two products are, the more they can exist unto themselves.
— Victoria/V.E. Schwab (@veschwab) November 30, 2018
Other writers/EPs on the series include Karen Wyscarver and Sanford Golden, who have both previously written for Bones, Time After Time, and Taken.
