Netflix Orders Straight-to-Series Adaptation of Curtis Sittenfeld's 'Prep'

By Elena Vasquez

Netflix has handed a straight-to-series order to "Prep," a YA drama based on Curtis Sittenfeld's 2005 debut novel of the same name. Nicole Taylor will adapt the book, serve as showrunner and executive produce. The order means the show skips the pilot stage entirely and goes directly into full production.

What is 'Prep' about?

Netflix describes the series as a coming-of-age story about "scholarship girl Lee Fiora's high school years at Ault, a prestigious New England boarding school, and her journey to navigate friendship, crushes and class as a fish out of water among her privileged, confident classmates." The premise: an outsider inside privilege, watching class lines from below. Lee is the axis of the story. The school is the pressure chamber.

Who is making it?

The executive producer roster runs five names deep:

• Nicole Taylor — adapter, showrunner, executive producer
• Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum and Alix Taylor — executive producers for Gloria Sanchez Productions
• Curtis Sittenfeld — the novelist, also executive producing

Taylor most recently created "One Day," the series starring Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod that aired on Netflix in 2024. Her other credits include the feature "The Wild Rose" and the series "Three Girls," "Dracula" and "The White Queen." She is repped by Curtis Brown Group and UTA.

What did Taylor and Sittenfeld say?

Taylor put her attachment in personal terms. "'Prep' is my all time favourite novel and I have longed to adapt it for the entire twenty years since I first read it and found myself reflected uncannily back," she said. "There is no more acute depiction of the introspective, bookish self-conscious adolescent girl and no more truthful or excoriating take on the perils of social mobility than in Curtis Sittenfeld's beautiful first novel. I am overjoyed to be adapting for Netflix."

Sittenfeld, for her part, dated the project's gestation. "I'm overjoyed that Netflix is making 'Prep' as a TV show — the 22-year wait was worth it!" she said. "Alix Taylor at Gloria Sanchez has guided the project forward with such intelligence and enthusiasm, and Nicole Taylor's scripts are truly brilliant." She added: "Nicole's adaptation makes me understand my own novel, and myself, better. My 51-year-old self can't wait to see what they do with this story of privilege, longing, and teen angst."

The arithmetic of that quote: the novel was published in 2005, Sittenfeld says the wait ran 22 years, and Taylor says she has wanted to adapt it for twenty — a project two decades in the making before a single frame is shot.

Why Netflix and Gloria Sanchez?

Gloria Sanchez Productions has a long production history with the streamer. The company most recently produced Ferrell's golf comedy series "The Hawk." Its Netflix slate also includes "Dead to Me," "No Good Deed" and "The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window." "Prep" extends that relationship into literary YA territory, a lane Netflix has mined successfully with boarding-school and coming-of-age properties. No cast, episode count or premiere date has been announced.