Prime Video is celebrating the massive success for the launch of the third and final season of Jenny Han’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by asserting this is just the beginning of its long-term strategy for YA dominance.
“I have to really credit this show in particular for helping us really understand what’s possible with these kind of hits,” Amazon MGM Studios TV boss Vernon Sanders told Variety in an interview Monday. And what’s possible is reaching beyond a YA audience for a YA-centric story, with plenty of older adults now invested in the end of the love triangle between Belly and Fisher brothers Conrad and Jeremiah.
“I think in general, when we talk about series for young women, we are talking about shows that center characters of a certain age range,” Sanders said. “But as we see with ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ there’s a whole storyline and rich characters in the parents of the characters. It’s an intergenerational story, so people can find themselves throughout. One of the things that was interesting about this show was, given how long ago it was originally printed, people might have started reading this when they were teens, then our adaptation came along, and by that point, they were in their early 20s. So people actually are growing and evolving with the property as it’s continued to evolve.”
See more from Variety‘s interview with Sanders about Amazon Prime Video’s YA strategy, including second season plans for “We Were Liars,” “Overcompensating” and “Motorheads.”
What defines a YA series for Amazon at this point? For example, Amazon’s upcoming “Fourth Wing” TV series — that romantasy novel series centers on characters at a military college, but is targeted at adult vs. YA readership. So would that show fall under YA?
For us, we look at the protagonists, and are the protagonists telling stories about becoming adults, or the trials and tribulations of being a young adult? But we also look at the readership or the fanbase for these properties, and if they are being driven by younger audiences at their core. That’s an incredibly compelling piece of the puzzle to it. It’s a broad category, but as we look at trying to be a service that’s not only global, but that appeals to all audiences — we’re focused on young men, we’re focused on young women, and we’re focused on adults who are 35-plus, as well — we’ve got different strategies for each of them. But this strategy has led our momentum with young women, and we’re very excited by the results we’ve seen so far.
Has the YA strategy changed since the exit of former Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke?
It’s been interesting. We’ve started really leaning into adaptations. We have “Off Campus” coming next year and “Every Year After,” which is based on the book “Every Summer After.” So we’ve been really focused on adaptations and authors and really leaning into each author’s relationship with their fans. But the other thing that we’ve really broadened is [looking at] creators of all types. So whether that’s Benito Skinner on “Overcompensating,” or Julie Plec, she’s had incredible success, and her “We Were Liars” has been fantastic. We love Megan Park, and we’re excited to be doing “Sterling Point” with her. And we’ve got such a great collection of people who have proven that they’ve got incredible skill at speaking to these audiences. So I could keep going, but the list is long, and we’re really excited. We have Mike Flanagan, who’s doing an adaptation of “Carrie” that I think is going to blow people away.
Where are you on plans for second seasons of these shows, like “We Were Liars”? There was a big nod to the second book’s plot at the end of Season 1.
You noticed! Yes, there was a tease. We are working with the writers of “We Were Liars” on a second season writers room right now. We haven’t announced the renewal quite yet, but we’re excited by the results we’ve seen of that show, and we’ve been excited by what we’ve seen with “Motorheads” and “Overcompensating,” as well. Each show has a really passionate fanbase, and we’ve been really pleased by the completion rates of “Motorheads” and “Overcompensating” — so we’re going to be in conversations with all three. All three shows are working on Season 2 writers rooms, and we’ll hope to have renewal announcements soon on some, if not all, of those shows.
What about “The Summer I Turned Pretty” — is there potential for more there after this final season? Author and series creator Jenny Han has a spinoff of “To All the Boys I Loved Before,” “XO, Kitty,” at Netflix that goes beyond the original film series — are you looking at something similar?
You know, all plans lead with Jenny Han, and she’s known from the beginning, how she’s wanted to do this, so we’ve been focused on this, getting the season right and ending it the right way. And I think once the full thing is released, we’ll be able to have more conversations with her. She’s got new ideas that she’s been dying to tackle. So whatever Jenny wants to do, we want to do it with her.
When it comes to these YA series, how do you handle trigger warnings and preparing younger viewers for sensitive content. When “We Were Liars” came out, fans who didn’t read the books didn’t know what they were in for by the end and it came as a shock to some without certain warnings up front.
That’s a really great question and a responsibility that really weighs on us. In general, we try to be conscious of taking care of our customers, and there are a lot of sensitivities that we’ve got to be conscious of. So each show is handled differently, each episode is handled differently. And we do try to give warnings to customers, even though it may give hints as to what’s in the episode. We’d rather bias towards making sure people feel safe and feel informed.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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