October 5, 2021 | Arts / Entertainment

Gay romance best-seller becoming a movie

Red, White & Royal Blue is finally being adapted for the big screen.

The best-seller by Casey McQuiston was published in 2019, proving a queer love story can find fans in the modern romance genre. The novel features the biracial, bisexual First Son of the United States who falls head-over-heels for his longtime rival, Prince Henry, the grandson of the Queen of England. When the two fake a friendship to get ahead of a scandal, they discover they share some much deeper feelings for one another.

The novel found new life during the pandemic, with readers looking for a break from the stresses of the past few years.

"I have seen more sales and more responses from readers and more everything in the past several months of the pandemic, than I did in the first year that the book was out," McQuiston said in an interview.

She revealed that she was forced to reconsider her original plans for the book when, back in 2016, Donald Trump was elected as President of the US.

"Suddenly what was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek parallel universe needed to be escapist, trauma-soothing, alternate-but-realistic reality. Not a perfect world — one still believably fucked up, just a little better, a little more optimistic. I wasn't sure I was up to the task. I hoped I was."

The film will closely follow the plot of the movie:

“What at first begins as a fake, Instagram-able friendship grows into something more meaningful than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could complicate his mother’s re-election campaign, upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all?”

The book has been picked up by Amazon Studios and will be directed by Tony Award-winning playwright Matthew López. Greg Berlanti, director of 2018 film Love, Simon is set to produce.