Best-selling author Melissa de la Cruz has signed a deal with Disney Publishing Worldwide to launch a new studio to create and develop stories across multiple platforms of the Disney company.
“Disney Publishing has been the home for many of my novels throughout the years and I am so thankful to continue the collaboration,” de la Cruz added. “I am beyond thrilled to forge a new journey with the team, full of even more incredible opportunities, nestled within The Walt Disney Company powerhouse. It is a dream come true.”
The new deal expands on de la Cruz’s existing relationship with Disney, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Disney is developing a 29 Dates movie, based on her book of the same name.
The prolific FilAm author has also written the best-selling Isle of the Lost series of novels based on the Disney Channel property The Descendants and is in the process of writing a novel based on Disney+’s High School Musical: The Series.
“As an author within the Disney Publishing Worldwide family, we have seen firsthand how Melissa de la Cruz cultivates a story and develops content for multiple platforms and media,” said Disney Hyperion & New Intellectual Property vice president and publisher Emily Meehan in a statement.
“Her strong creative vision will inspire the next generation of best sellers and content creators for entertainment beyond the pages of a book.”
Additionally, Disney will be publishing new installments of de la Cruz’s Blue Bloods series starting next year, according to Disney.
Besides her own work, the new studio, Melissa de la Cruz Studio, will work with new and established authors to create original content for development.
The new studio will have a wealth of material to work from based on the Manila-born author’s own novels aimed at the young adult audience.
De la Cruz is the author of the Blue Bloods series (with three million copies in print), among many others. Her first series for adults launched with Witches of East End. The bestseller was followed by Serpent’s Kiss and Winds of Salem.
Lifetime Television aired a two-season drama series based on Witches of East End, starring Julia Ormond, Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Rachel Boston and Mädchen Amick. De la Cruz’s young adult spin-off of the series, Summer on East End has also been optioned for television
Her books include Something in Between, a YA contemporary novel inspired by de la Cruz’s own immigrant experience coming from the Philippines, as well as Alex and Eliza, a historical novel about the romance between Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler.
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