TORONTO — Blink49 Studios, formerly called Blink Studios, announced today it has acquired the rights to Canadian author Marissa Stapley’s novel Things to Do When It’s Raining, which it plans to adapt for television.
Blink49 is the Toronto-based independent content studio launched last November by several former Entertainment One executives. The studio is backed by global film and TV studio Endeavor Content, which is its lead strategic investor.
Things to Do When It’s Raining (book cover pictured above) is set in Canada’s Thousand Islands and centres around a woman “who is driven by deception and despair to return home from the city to her grandparent’s inn,” explains a press release.
“There, she encounters Gabe, the island-dwelling boy who was her companion as a child and her first love as a teenage girl, but then disappeared from her life without a trace. The ultimately life affirming story unravels the past and braids together three generations of love affairs,” the release reads.
With Blink49 Studios serving as the studio for the television adaptation, the series will be executive produced by Carolyn Newman, Blink49’s executive vice-president for global scripted, and Virginia Rankin, in-house executive producer. Both Newman and Rankin were hired shortly after the studio launched.
“How can you beat an epic romance with a great mystery at the core to unravel? Once we started reading, we couldn’t put it down. Marissa knows how to craft a story that truly resonates, and we are thrilled to be working with her on adapting her novel,” said Newman and Rankin in a statement in the press release.
“It is such a delight to be working with Blink49 Studios on this project,” said Stapley. “Carolyn Newman and Virginia Rankin’s passion for a book so dear to my heart is a writer’s dream — and their commitment to and enthusiasm for bringing it to the screen with a focus on the love story, the charming setting, and the intrigue of secrets is so exciting.”
This the second book adaptation project announced by Blink49 Studios. In January, the studio announced it had acquired the rights to Canadian author Charlene Carr’s upcoming novel Hold My Girl.
Photo of Things to Do When It’s Raining book cover supplied by Blink49 Studios.
