Netflix is developing a film adaptation of Lynn Painter’s Better Than the Movies, Deadline reports.
Painter’s young-adult romantic comedy, published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster, follows Liz, a high schooler who befriends her irritating next-door neighbor, Wes, in a scheme to get her old crush, Michael, to ask her to the senior prom. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “Exactly what the title promises.” A sequel, Nothing Like the Movies, was published in 2024.
Julia Hart (I’m Your Woman, Hollywood Stargirl) will direct the adaptation, which is written by Hart, Jordan Horowitz, and Heather Flanders.
Better Than the Movies is the second of Painter’s books currently in development. In March, Sony Pictures announced a film adaptation of her 2025 novel, Fake Skating.
Painter shared news of the Better Than the Movies adaptation on Instagram, writing, “Five years (and one day) after BTTM was first published, I get to post that Netflix is adapting the book…? I shall now perish…I mean, just the fact that Wes and Liz are going to be on-screen in a MOVIE is cool enough, but I am OVER THE MOON that my little babies have landed in such capable hands.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
