“On My Block” co-creator and showrunner Lauren Iungerich is set to make her feature directorial debut. Miramax has acquired film rights to her screenplay “I Won’t Be Home For Christmas,” and she’s on board to helm and produce the project. A press release confirmed the news.
The comedy tells the story of Grace, a 16-year-old who is “given the golden ticket to forgo having to spend the holidays with her crazy family and instead go skiing with her new boyfriend Tad. When Tad unceremoniously breaks up with her before the trip, Grace must return home humiliated with a broken heart to endure her embarrassing family and their ludicrous holiday traditions.”
“I know we might seem at first glance like an unlikely pair, but we have been friends for over 20 years and have deeply admired each other’s careers,” said producer Eli Roth. “Lauren has a singular voice that resonates with teens worldwide, and we are so excited to help bring her vision to the big screen for a global theatrical teen event.”
Iungerich added, “I’m beyond excited to be working alongside my friend and visionary Eli Roth and the prolific Roger Birnbaum. Roger has incredible ability to take a romantic comedy from script to the big screen and make it a hit, so I couldn’t be more honored and grateful for this opportunity to make my first feature with this dream team.”
Set in a South Central Los Angeles neighborhood, Netflix dramedy “On My Block” centers on four highschoolers. Season 2 will drop on the streamer March 29. Iungerich also created Ashley Rickards-starrer “Awkward.,” a popular MTV comedy about an unpopular teen whose life changes overnight when an accident leads everyone around her to think she attempted suicide. The show ran from 2011-2016.
Asked about why she was drawn to “On My Block,” Iungerich said, “I was at a sort of dark place in my life, and I really wanted to get back to this teen world that speaks to me. It’s where I think my strength lies, this young voice. I was just thinking about how the majority of inspirational and fun YA shows are all told through a white prism, and I just wanted to see a show where the heroes weren’t white. And I knew that I couldn’t write that alone, I needed collaborators to help do that, and there was something exciting about that possibility.”
“For me, ‘Awkward.’ was this very personal endeavor,” she explained, ” and I wanted to do something where I was able to not only transform my own experience, but be able to do it with a partner, which is what I found in Eddie Gonzalez and Jeremy Haft, [‘On My Block’s co-creators].”
