Float

Huge news and Behind-the-Scenes Movie Update

Hi, friends!

Long time, no see. I am so excited to announce that Float is officially heading to the Vancouver Film Festival this fall! It is also the first international film festival entry from Wattpad WEBTOON Studios!

I wanted to share this huge news and give you a sneak peek at what's been going on behind the scenes.

During the filming, I got to visit the set in Squamish (a town just north of Vancouver, Canada). I brought my mom—as one does, when visiting the movie set of the book you wrote—and two very talented writer friends (Simone Shirazi and Natalie Walton). It was an utterly unreal, gratitude-packed weekend in one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been. Seriously, when you see the movie, you won't believe me but: we didn't use any green screens. It's really just that picturesque in Squamish.

At this point, you're probably thinking: wait, isn't the book set in Florida?

We've made some big changes to the story in the movie adaptation. Some of those changes were practical (Wattpad is a Canadian company; Robbie Amell and his team are Canadian; we're pro-Canada in this house) but some of them were artistic.

I have to shout out our director, Sherren Lee, for championing the changes. Sherren is a talented storyteller and a lover of summer romance stories. She took the best bits of my book—the core of every character and the emotional heart of Waverly's adventure—and produced a beautiful tribute to the source material. Honestly, she improved it: she brought it into this decade. It was an honor and a joy to give my story to Sherren and let her make it ours.

So, no spoilers, but I wanted to prep you for the biggest changes.

First and foremost: as you might've noticed, Robbie and Andrea are not teenagers anymore (though they're both talented enough I think they could pull it off). The main characters in the book—Waverly, Blake, and the rest of the crew—have been aged up for the movie. Instead of bumbling, chaotic teenagers, they're now bumbling, chaotic twenty-somethings.

Another big change I owe to Sherren is that Waverly (played by Andrea Bang) is Asian-Canadian in the film. Part of the joy for me in writing FLOAT was exploring myself through the main character. It's been an absolute joy watching Sherren do the same, adding new nuance and depth to Waverly—and some much-needed representation on screen (all girls deserve to see themselves get the guy).

I hope you guys will enjoy and appreciate the movie adaptation as much as I do. I'm so, so grateful to all the cast and crew who have taken my book and transformed it into something that's both new and somehow still perfectly true to the original.

Keep an eye out—more news to come soon.

Your friendly author,

Kate