Son of the Mob gets YA rom-com treatment from Kissing Booth filmmaker
Vince Marcello will direct and produce a film version of Gordon Korman’s Son of the Mob for Red Sage Studios and Sun Distribution.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Vince Marcello, the filmmaker behind Netflix’s The Kissing Booth trilogy, is getting back into the YA romance lane with a crime-family twist.
Deadline reported that Red Sage Studios and Sun Distribution, part of Telefilms Group, have added a screen adaptation of Gordon Korman’s novel Son of the Mob to their slate. Red Sage is the young adult-focused company founded by James Farrell, the former head of Amazon MGM Studios International.
Marcello is set to direct and produce the film. He also wrote the script with Jay Arnold, his collaborator on the two Kissing Booth sequels, according to Deadline.
A teen romance with mob trouble
Son of the Mob follows Vince, a teenager whose father is a mob boss. Vince wants a regular life, but his family’s alleged criminal world keeps pulling him back in.
The romantic complication arrives when Vince falls for the daughter of the FBI agent investigating his family. Deadline described the story as a romantic comedy where those two worlds clash in increasingly comic ways.
Production is expected to happen in Canada with Vancouver-based Brightlight Pictures, Deadline reported.
Marcello told Deadline that the book grabbed him right away. “I was laughing from the opening scene. Being Italian American myself, I could immediately visualize these characters, and I was in from the moment James shared the project with me,” he said.
Back in the YA sweet spot
Marcello’s Kissing Booth films, based on Beth Reekles’ novels, became major titles for Netflix before the streamer began issuing its current twice-yearly viewing reports, according to Deadline. Netflix is set to move to annual reporting starting in the first quarter of 2027, Deadline has reported.
The first Kissing Booth set a Netflix rewatch-rate record, with nearly half of viewers watching it more than once, according to Deadline. The sequel logged 209.2 million viewing hours in its first 28 days, while the third film drew 451 million viewing minutes in its first week, per Nielsen figures cited by Deadline.
The Son of the Mob move adds another YA property to Red Sage and Sun Distribution’s growing list. Deadline previously reported that the companies are also working on an adaptation of Jessica Cunsolo’s bestseller She’s with Me, with Culpa Mía filmmaker Domingo González attached.
Other projects on the Red Sage slate include The Bridge Kingdom and Let’s Play, according to Deadline.
Marcello is represented by The Gotham Group, IAG and Davis Law Group. Korman, the Canadian children’s and YA author behind Son of the Mob, is represented by WME and Elizabeth Harding at Curtis Brown NY. Red Sage Studios is represented by CAA, Deadline reported.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.