Discovery Plus to Launch First Scripted Drama With ‘Girls With Bright Futures’

Discovery Plus Logo and Girls with Bright Futures book cover
Discovery / Amazon

Discovery Plus is heading into the world of scripted drama after acquiring the TV rights to the book Girls with Bright Futures, as first reported by Variety.

Written by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman, the novel was first published in February this year and explores the dog-eat-dog world of college admissions in an elite Seattle community. Discovery Plus is developing the project as a miniseries.

“College admissions season at Elliott Bay Academy is marked by glowing acceptances from top-tier institutions and students as impressive as their parents are ambitious,” reads the logline. “But when Stanford alerts the school it’s allotting only one spot to EBA for their incoming class, three mothers discover the competition is more cutthroat than they could have imagined.”

The TV adaptation will be produced by John Goldwyn (Manhunt: Unabomber) and Karen Rosenfelt (Twilight), who are currently exec producing Hulu’s Dopesick together. There is no word yet on who will be writing the series.

Girls with Bright Futures marks a move into original scripted programming for Discovery Plus, which, so far, has mostly compromised of unscripted reality shows and library content from networks such as Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, and the Food Network, among others.

Discovery Plus launched in the United States in January 2021 and currently boasts 13 million subscribers, according to Discovery’s latest earnings report.