Amazon Studios has ordered the first series of Legendary Television’s Paper Girls, according to Deadline. The series is based off of Brian K. Vaughan’s graphic novel by the same name, and will be adapted by Stephany Folsom who also co-wrote Toy Story 4. Folsom will additionally serve as co-executive producer alongside Vaughan. She is concurrently working with Amazon Studios on the The Lord of the Rings series as Consulting Producer.
The series will be set in 1988 and focus on four young paper girls. The morning after Halloween, they go on their regular paper routes, and inadvertently get caught up in a world of time travel that sends them on a mission to save the world. While traveling time, the girls face themselves in the future, and must decide whether or not to accept what they have seen as fate.
Amidst the streaming battle, many are claiming this will be Amazon’s more female-centric version of Stranger Things. As Deadline announced the series was won in “competitive situation,” many are questioning if Netflix was also vying for the show. However, according to Vaughn, this series might focus less on the nostalgia of the 80’s, which was prevalent in Stranger Things, and more on the social changes: “I remember a lot of aspects of that era fondly, but it also felt like, wow, there’s a lot of fiction now about the 1980s that completely whitewashes a lot of the worst aspects of it. The casual hatred and homophobia was so pervasive. I think as creators we have an obligation – particularly in the young adult books, writing for an audience that was not alive then – to show them how far we have come and also how far we still need to go as a society.”
Vaughan is a best-selling author and has won many awards for his graphic novels. He also serves as an executive consultant for Hulu’s Runaways, which was also an adaption of one of Vaughan’s comics.
Paper Girls will be Vaughan’s first project among many with Legendary Entertainment, as he signed a multi-year overall deal. Legendary TV has a few things on its plate including Netflix’s Lost In Space, Amazon’s Carnival Row, and Dune: The Sisterhood, which will arrive on HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new streaming service.