Anna Todd started writing After on her phone in 2013.
Over a decade later, she has twelve million copies sold, five films, producing credits on Colleen Hoover adaptations, and a Prime Video film premiering this month.
Now, a TV series based on her upcoming novel is in development at Amazon MGM.
Amazon MGM Studios is extending its relationship with bestselling novelist Anna Todd with House of Crowns, a series adaptation of her forthcoming romance novel of the same name.
The project is coming out of Amazon’s UK division and marks Todd’s first venture into television, a significant milestone for an author who has been methodically building an entertainment empire since she first uploaded a fanfic chapter to Wattpad more than a decade ago.
The book hasn’t even been given a publication date, yet Amazon bought it preemptively anyway. That is the Anna Todd effect in full operation.
Who Exactly Is Anna Todd?
If you somehow missed the After phenomenon—which is impressive, given its scale—here is the condensed version of one of the most remarkable publishing-to-Hollywood stories of the decade.
Anna Renee Todd began writing stories on her phone on Wattpad, and After became the platform’s most-read series, with over two billion reads. Two billion. On a free platform. Before a single print copy existed.
Todd’s writing was initially inspired by the music and fandom of One Direction. After began as fan fiction with Harry Styles as its inspiration, before being transformed into original fiction for publication. The print edition arrived in 2014, and the rest is history that keeps writing itself.
The After franchise has sold over twelve million copies worldwide in 35 languages. Todd wrote and produced the five films inspired by the books, which together grossed $170 million at the worldwide box office and later topped Netflix’s charts.
Todd’s recent credits include the Colleen Hoover adaptation Regretting You and Prime Video’s adaptation of her novel The Last Sunrise, starring Maia Reficco and Fernando Lindez, which premieres August 26.
Amazon is already eyeing a sequel to The Last Sunrise, with Todd’s novel being developed into a planned trilogy of films.
What Will House of Crowns Be About?
The premise for Todd’s forthcoming novel, and now Amazon series, immediately signals she is moving into darker, more complex territory than the sun-drenched summer romance of The Last Sunrise.
House of Crowns is set at an elite boarding school in Switzerland where royalty and world leaders send their children. When a poor outsider there on scholarship and a gilded heiress with dangerous secrets fall into a forbidden love, it could shatter them both.
An outsider scholarship student. A gilded heiress with dangerous secrets. A European elite boarding school where the children of royalty and world leaders learn to inherit power.
The social dynamics at play here—class, privilege, ambition, and forbidden desire—are rich territory, and the Swiss setting gives the whole thing a beautiful, pressurized claustrophobia that feels very well-suited to television.
The Creative Team Behind the Upcoming Production
Elinor Cook has been tapped to adapt the book for the screen, amid her concurrent work on Boys of Tommen TV series, Amazon’s adaptation of Chloe Walsh’s bestselling book series.
Cook is clearly becoming a trusted voice in Amazon’s romance adaptation pipeline, and having the same writer working across multiple high-profile romance series is a smart creative investment.
Jennifer Gibgot and Andrew Panay of Ethea Entertainment—the producers behind the After franchise and The Last Sunrise—will produce, alongside Lena Roklin of Luber Roklin and Will Gould of Moonage Pictures. Todd will executive produce.
No cast has been announced yet since the series is in early development at Amazon’s UK division, meaning the Swiss boarding school setting will likely be brought to life with a distinctly European production sensibility.
Before the Gates of the Elite School Open
House of Crowns doesn’t have a publication date yet, making this one of those rare occasions when the adaptation announcement genuinely precedes the book.
There’s nothing to read yet.
For now, The Last Sunrise premieres on Prime Video on August 26, and that is the ideal place to spend your week while waiting for more House of Crowns news to emerge.
In the meantime, if you haven’t spent time with Anna Todd’s work—After is where to start. Two billion Wattpad reads cannot be entirely wrong.
Given everything she has built since those phone-typed chapters first went online, watching what she does with a Swiss elite boarding school, a scholarship outsider, and a gilded heiress with dangerous secrets is going to be very interesting indeed.
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