EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television has optioned the rights to The Bad Kids, a hit drama series from iQIYI, China’s leading online entertainment platform, with Neal H. Moritz’s (Fast & Furious and Sonic The Hedgehog franchises) Original Film (The Boys franchise) set to produce the adaptation. Marco Ramirez (Netflix’s Daredevil) is attached as showrunner and executive producer and is set to write the pilot episode.
A nail-biting suspense drama, The Bad Kids follows three lower-class kids who witness a murder and decide to blackmail the killer. Their subsequent decisions spawn a web of tragic consequences, forcing the kids and the adults around them to forge unlikely alliances.
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iQIYI’s The Bad Kids quickly topped viewing charts, becoming the most-watched series in China. Sony touts in a release for the project that the series spawned over 5 billion views on the Chinese Twitter-like social media platform Weibo.
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Moritz produces alongside Pavun Shetty, Original Film, and iQIYI. Neal H. Moritz’s Original Film has an overall deal with Sony Pictures Television.
Ramirez is an accomplished showrunner and executive Producer, most recently for Hulu’s La Maquina, starring Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal. His previous TV credits also include Netflix’s Daredevil, AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead, Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, and FX’s Sons of Anarchy. His new musical, Buena Vista Social Club, premiered on Broadway to rave reviews, while his play The Royale had successful runs at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles and Lincoln Center. He is repped by UTA.
Original Film’s slate includes the Emmy-nominated series The Boys and Gen V, which premiered as the #1 series on Prime Video in over 130 countries; Emmy-nominated Goosebumps on Disney+; Long Bright River on Peacock; and S.W.A.T. on CBS. They are set to produce Prime Video’s Vought Rising, a prequel to The Boys starring Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash, and Golden Axe for Comedy Central. Previous series include Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer on Prime Video; Preacher on AMC; Happy! on SyFy; Prison Break on Fox; the HBO movie The Rat Pack, which earned 11 Primetime Emmy nominations; Showtime’s highly acclaimed The Big C; and the NBC series Save Me.