Kitsos, Iacono Land Leads in Netflix's 'Better Than the Movies'
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- Beatrice Kitsos and David Iacono have landed the lead roles in Netflix's adaptation of Lynn Painter's 'Better Than the Movies,' playing Liz Buxbaum and her next-door neighbor Wes Bennett, respectively.
- Lynn Painter's 2021 novel spent 44 consecutive months on the New York Times monthly YA paperback list and 20 weeks on the weekly YA hardcover list — a testament to its BookTok-driven popularity.
- BookTok fans had already fan-cast Iacono for Wes Bennett, making dream-casting reels before Netflix even announced the adaptation; Kitsos offered herself up for an audition on Instagram after readers submitted her name for Liz.
- Julia Hart, director of Netflix's Sunny Sandler-led 'Don't Say Good Luck' (out August 14), returns to the director's chair from a script by Heather Flanders and Hart & Jordan Horowitz.
- Jordan Horowitz, Hart, Shauna Phelan, and Melanie Krauss are producing through Original Headquarters, the same banner behind 'Don't Say Good Luck.'
- This casting comes one day after Deadline reported Sony tapped Josh Boone ('The Fault in Our Stars') to helm a separate Lynn Painter adaptation, 'Fake Skating' — Painter's second major project announcement in 48 hours.
- Kitsos is known for 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians,' 'It Lives Inside,' and 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?'; Iacono for 'The Summer I Turned Pretty,' 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' and the upcoming Amazon MGM rom-com 'Goodbye Girl.'
Why it matters: Lynn Painter is becoming a Hollywood pipeline unto herself — Netflix greenlit this adaptation and Sony tapped Josh Boone for 'Fake Skating' just one day apart, while her 44-month NYT paperback streak signals the BookTok-driven demand Netflix is buying into.
