Ali Hazelwood is having a moment, and honestly, she has earned every single bit of it. The movie adaptation of The Love Hypothesis is about to hit Prime Video, and now Deep End—her spiciest, most talked-about book—has just landed at Netflix with a producer lineup that nobody saw coming.
After getting the rights to the novel, Netflix has launched development on a feature adaptation of Deep End, the instant number one New York Times bestselling New Adult romance from Ali Hazelwood. Shawn Levy and Dan Levine are set to produce via 21 Laps, alongside Alex Cooper and Matt Kaplan from Unwell Productions.
Shawn Levy, the man behind Deadpool & Wolverine, and Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy fame are producing a steamy college sports romance. We genuinely did not have that on our 2026 bingo card, but we are completely here for it.
What Is Deep End About?
Deep End is Ali Hazelwood’s sports romance debut, and the internet had a lot of feelings about it, which is usually a very good sign.
Published in 2025 by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Deep End centers on the steamy college romance between a competitive diver and an ace swimmer jumping into forbidden waters. Since publication, it has been licensed in 21 territories, selling nearly 1.5 million copies worldwide.
The official synopsis is the kind that makes you want to clear your afternoon:
Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.
Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.
So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship.
It has everything Hazelwood readers love: a STEM-adjacent setting, a heroine keeping her head down, a golden boy with hidden layers, and a slow-burn that absolutely does not stay slow.
What makes Deep End a little different from her earlier books is that it’s her spiciest book yet, which generated considerable discourse online.
Those who loved it really loved it. Jodi Picoult called it:
“Deep End—set in the world of competitive swimming and diving—is a stroke of genius: perfect tens, across the board.”
Coming from a number one New York Times bestselling author, that is not a small endorsement.
The Producer Lineup That Has Everyone Talking
Let’s be very clear: this combination of producers is genuinely unusual, and that’s exactly what makes it exciting.
This will mark Levy’s first venture into steamy romance movies as a producer. The filmmaker has previously directed and produced comedies such as Free Guy, The Adam Project, Deadpool & Wolverine, and more. Levy has also served as a producer in the Academy Award-winning sci-fi drama Arrival.
And then there’s Alex Cooper, who is a podcaster, media mogul, and one of the most recognizable voices in the millennial and Gen Z conversation about sex, relationships, and female autonomy.
Pairing her Unwell Productions company with 21 Laps to bring a story like Deep End to Netflix is a genuinely inspired match. Cooper’s instinct for what this audience wants is arguably as sharp as any studio executive’s.
Laura Kosann has been tapped to pen the script. Ali Hazelwood will executive produce, alongside Matthew Janzen for Unwell Productions.
The author’s involvement as executive producer is always reassuring because she brings the same precision to protecting her characters on screen that she does to building them on the page.
No director or cast has been announced yet.
Who Is Ali Hazelwood?
If you’re somehow not yet in the Ali Hazelwood fandom, let us fix that immediately, because her story is as charming as her books.
Ali Hazelwood is an Italian romance novelist and neuroscience professor based in the United States. Many of her works center on women in STEM fields and academia. She lived in Germany and Japan before finally settling in the U.S. to pursue her PhD, and she describes herself on her website with the kind of self-deprecating precision you’d expect from someone who writes brilliant, neurotic female protagonists for a living.
She left academia to pursue writing full-time in 2022 and has sold more than 10 million copies of her work worldwide.
Jump In Before Netflix Does
Deep End is the kind of book that rewards you with going in without too many expectations. Simply let Scarlett and Lukas pull you under. The world of competitive collegiate swimming gives the story a kinetic, pressure-cooker energy that is genuinely different from anything Hazelwood has written before, and the slow-burn between two athletes who both have something to prove is exactly as satisfying as it sounds.
With Shawn Levy’s production instincts, Alex Cooper’s finger on the pulse of exactly this audience, and Hazelwood herself keeping watch as executive producer, the Netflix adaptation has a real shot at capturing what made the book so compulsively readable.
But read it first. Because once casting is announced and the trailer drops, Scarlett and Lukas will belong to everyone. Right now, they’re still just on the page, and for us bookworms, that’s the best place to meet them.
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