Lynn Painter’s bestselling novel Fake Skating is getting a feature film adaptation with Josh Boone attached to direct.
John Boone is experienced in literary adaptations and he’s best known for directing The Fault in Our Stars and Regretting You.
The high school romance follows childhood sweethearts who have an icy reunion in their hockey-loving hometown; the ice only thaws when they fake a romantic relationship. Morgan Lehmann and Victoria Bata adapted Fake Skating for the screen, Boone and Knate Lee handled the revisions. Will Gluck and Jacqueline Monetta serve as the producers and Madison Jones as executive producer on behalf of Olive Bridge Entertainment.
Painter also serves as an executive producer. Will Gluck’s Olive Bridge and Sony Pictures are developing the film. Sony Pictures has found success with literary adaptations including It Ends With Us ($350 million worldwide), Where the Crawdads Sing ($144 million) and Little Women (more than $200 million globally). Kristin Hannah’s New York Times bestseller The Nightingale is also in the works.
Lynn Painter confirmed the news on social media. She is a #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author. Her novels include Better Than the Movies, The Do-Over, Betting on You, Mr. Wrong Number, The Love Wager, and Nothing Like the Movies. Her book Fake Skating was published in September 2025, and has appeared on the New York Times YA Hardcover Bestseller list every week since then, holding the #1 spot for 15 of those weeks. The novel, which won the 2025 Goodreads Choice Award, has been translated into 16 languages and has more than 200,000 copies in print.
According to insiders, the studio fast-tracked the Fake Skating project after giving it the green light last week, underscoring their confidence in Boone despite having no cast attached. The movie is set to premiere on July 16, 2027.
