Billboard Women in Music 2025
EXCLUSIVE: Death Is My Best Friend, based on Katarina Tonks’ hit Wattpad book series, is being adapted for television. The project, from writer Lindsey Rosin (Cruel Intentions), Greg Silverman’s Stampede and Sony Pictures TV, is in very early development at Syfy, Deadline has confirmed.
Penned by Rosin, Death Is My BFF, the series, tells the coming-of-age story of Faith Williams, an ordinary teenage girl who on the eve of her 18th birthday discovers that she is the product of a prophecy, which makes her responsible for protecting the balance of all good and evil on earth. This task is soon complicated by the Angel of Death, an insatiable, sarcastic and undeniably sexy Grim Reaper, who has been tasked with collecting Faith’s soul and delivering it to the underworld. Now, Faith must fend off Death’s advances while also fighting evil spirits – all while attempting to navigate the drama of her senior year of high school, fight her own personal battle with anxiety and live up to the full potential of her extraordinary soul.
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Greg Silverman and Paul Shapiro of Stampede will executive produce with Aron Levitz and Eric Lehrman of Wattpad.
As Deadline previously reported, Sony TV had acquired the rights to the book series, which bowed via Wattpad, the Toronto-based storytelling app that combines crowdsourced content and other material. Shapiro, now head of television for Stampede, had brought the project to Sony under his All In Media banner.
“Everyone at Stampede is a champion of new and original voices in publishing and media, and we’re tremendously excited to develop Katarina’s voice for television with Lindsey Rosin’s writing and our partners at Syfy, Sony Television and Wattpad Studios,” Stampede said in a statement. “She’s a truly unique storyteller and one to watch.”
Tonks’ Death Is My BFF series of stories have more than 62 million reads to date on Wattpad.
Rosin co-wrote and co-executive produced with Jordan Ross and Roger Kumble the Cruel Intentions TV sequel, which was ordered to pilot at NBC and had Sarah Michelle Gellar reprise her role. Along with Ross, she also was behind Cruel Intentions: The Unauthorized Musical Parody. She also has fashion designer drama Threads set at ABC with Random Hill and ABC Studios. Rosin is repped by Underground, ICM Partners and Tara Kole at Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown.
“’Death Is My BFF” demonstrates the possibilities of storytelling on Wattpad, where writers like Katarina can build a global audience and get noticed by Hollywood,” said Aron Levitz, Head of Wattpad Studios. “This project is a validation of the fans who made “Death Is My BFF” a hit on Wattpad, and we’re thrilled to work with Stampede and Sony Pictures Television to develop this story for new fans everywhere.”
Wattpad is repped by UTA.
