Mckenna Grace & Asher Angel To Star In Teen Romance ’99 Days’ Based On Katie Cotugno’s Bestseller For Alloy Entertainment; Architect Launching Sales At Cannes

Matt Grobar
·4 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Mckenna Grace (A Friend of the Family) and Asher Angel (Shazam! films) are set to star in Alloy Entertainment’s teen romance 99 Days, based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Katie Cotugno, which we were first to tell you was in development.

Martha Stephens is attached to direct from a script she co-wrote with Shannon Bradley-Colleary, her screenwriter for the 2019 drama To the Stars. Leslie Morgenstein and Elysa Koplovitz Dutton will produce through Alloy Entertainment, which also produced the book, with Architect to launch worldwide sales at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

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99 Days marks Alloy’s follow-up to Purple Hearts, the smash hit YA romance, starring Sofia Carson and Nicholas Galitzine, which remains in the Global Top 10 of the most-watched movies ever on Netflix. The film tells the story of Molly (Grace), who is facing one long, hot summer vacation back at Star Lake: stuck in paradise for 99 days — with Patrick, the boy whose heart she broke, and the boy she broke it for…his brother Gabe (Angel).

“We are so excited to see Mckenna, Asher and Martha bring this incredible screenplay to life,” said Alloy Entertainment’s Dutton. “Molly is a character audiences will see in themselves and fall in love with.”

Added Architect partner Calum Gray, “We are hugely excited to share ’99 Days’ with buyers. As Alloy did so brilliantly with ‘Purple Hearts,’ every element of this movie is beautifully tailored for its young adult audience: a white-hot bestseller, an award-winning writer-director team who’ve delivered for younger audiences, and, in McKenna and Asher, breakout stars of their teen generation. Shepherded by Les and Elysa, ’99 Days’ is the perfect escapist, aspirational and emotional movie for YA audiences right now.”

Grace two years ago landed an Emmy nomination for her role of Esther Keyes on Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, making her the youngest-ever nominee in a Guest Actor category. She also recently starred opposite Anna Paquin, Colin Hanks and Jake Lacy in Peacock’s critically acclaimed true-crime limited series A Friend of the Family, there portraying a young Jan Broberg. Notable film credits for the actress include Sony’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife; Lifetime’s TV movie The Bad Seed Returns, which she also exec produced and co-wrote with her father; Amazon’s Troop Zero opposite Viola Davis; Gifted opposite Chris Evans and Octavia Spencer; and such additional titles as Captain Marvel and I, Tonya.

Breaking out with his lead role as Billy Batson in Warner Bros’ DC superhero pic Shazam! and its recent sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Angel also recently starred in the 20th/Hulu film Darby and the Dead. He’s otherwise best known for a series regular role on Disney Channel’s Andi Mack.

Stephens won the Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award for her 2015 feature Land Ho!, which she wrote and directed with Aaron Katz. She’s otherwise best known for helming To the Stars, starring Kara Hayward and Liana Liberato, which world premiered at Sundance 2019 and was released the following year by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Alloy Entertainment will see its Adam Sandler comedy You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah launch on Netflix this summer, with its genre pic Horrorscope bowing in theaters via Sony’s Screen Gems this fall. The company’s most recent film, Purple Hearts, entered the Top 10 films on Netflix in 93 countries and remained in the global Top 10 for six consecutive weeks. On the television side, Alloy has produced such hit series as Netflix’s You starring Penn Badgley, both iterations of Gossip Girl, HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and The Vampire Diaries.

Architect introduced buyers to the Jenny Slate-led horror pic Mindful, produced by Tracey Nyberg and Aggregate Films, ahead of Cannes. They’ll soon be on hand at the festival to screen the first footage from writer-director Daisy-May Hudson’s Lollipop, produced by Parkville Pictures with BBC Film and the BFI.

Grace is repped by CAA and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; Angel by UTA, Atlas Artists and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Stephens by UTA, Cinetic Media and Granderson Des Rochers; and Bradley-Colleary by Gersh and Granderson Des Rochers.

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