It's official! The erotic "Crossfire" series by Sylvia Day has been approved for a television series. The novels have been compared to E.L. James' "Fifty Shades of Grey" series and follows Eva Tramell, a young woman in the advertising industry and her steamy relationship with billionaire Gideon Cross.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate has acquired the rights to turn the books into a series adapted for TV. The books have sold more than 12 million copies worldwide since it first debuted in April 2012.
The first book in the series "Bared To You" reached number five and spent 65 weeks on USA Today's list while the second book "Reflected in You" reached the number two spot and spent 43 weeks on the list. The most recent book in the series is "Entwined to You."
"The 'Crossfire' series is an incredible property and it is a thrill to bring it to Lionsgate," Chris Salek, executive vice president at Lionsgate, told The Hollywood Reporter. "Sylvia has created an enduring, sexy and edgy story, and we're looking forward to working with her to create a show that both excites and connects with audiences as her books have done."
"This is a studio that has been incredibly successful with book adaptions and I can't wait to collaborate with them in bringing the story to life," Day said to THR.
According to USA Today, a network has not signed on yet but according to rumors the series could work well on either HBO or Showtime. In an interview with Bookish, Day said she will not be writing the television series but will act as an executive producer.
She also revealed that producers will try to keep the steamy sex scenes and will more than likely keep the story similar to how it is in the books.
"I'm sure we'll see a lot of that translated to the film, which should be interesting and hopefully not too hard on the actors... I'm really excited," she said.
"Usually, protagonists in erotic romance have difficult times communicating verbally, so the way that they get their feelings across - whether it's anger, happiness, love, lust, all of it - is during the sex scenes. You really couldn't do a PG version of 'Crossfire!' it just wouldn't work," she continued. "They have that in mind. We're all on board with the fact that it would need to be premium cable, on which recently we've seen a lot of wonderful book-to-film adaptions: 'Game of Thrones,' 'Dexter,' 'True Blood.'"
The news comes as Universal continues to work towards its "Fifty Shades of Grey" film adaption which has an official release date of Aug. 1, 2014.
