It seems Millie Bobby Brown hasn’t saturated the market on telekinetic teens. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has begun production on I Am Not Ok With This, an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Charles Forsman. The show will be helmed by Jonathan Entwistle and Christy Hall, who previously adapted Forsman’s The End Of The F***ing World, which is set to release a second season later this year. They will also be collaborating with Shawn Levy and his team of creatives Dan Levine, Dan Cohen and Josh Barry. They all work on another familiar Netflix show, Stranger Things, which drops its third season this July, and they probably know a thing about superpowered youths.
The show will focus on Sydney, a teenage girl who likes to think of herself as average, and for the most part is, in that she doesn’t get along with her mom and she hates high school. But she’s also starting to develop telekinetic superpowers, at some times more welcome than others. Of course, there’s all the drama of high school, blossoming sexualities and frustrations, friendships put in jeopardy over those new blossoming sexualities, but Sydney deals with it all with her biting, witty sense of humor.
The show has officially been cast and filming has begun in Pittsburgh as of Monday June 10, 2019. The lead role of Sydney will be played by Sophia Lillis (It, Sharp Objects) who is having a bit of a moment right now. Other characters in the cast include her single mother, to be played by Kathleen Rose Perkins (Episodes), described as always working and somewhat distant following the death of her husband and her younger brother, who will be played by Aidan Wojtak-Hissong (Falling Water) a fiery, independent spirit that hasn’t quite been crushed by the real world yet.
There are also her friends, including her neighbor Stanley, played by Wyatt Oleff (It), who’s “uncool but cool with it, which in way makes him cool”. She has a “badass” best friend Dina, played by Sofia Bryant (The Good Wife) described as bubbly and confident, but with one drawback, she’s got a boyfriend that Sydney doesn’t like. The boyfriend, played by Richard Ellis (the upcoming Veronica Mars revival) is the “all-American golden boy”, but Sydney just thinks of him as the guy who will take Dina away from her.
The show is set to be released in 2020 with eight half-hour episodes. The show has been described as a potential dark comedy. The biggest clue as to what audiences can expect would be to look at the showrunners past work and see if any of it matches up.