Thanks to Bowen Yang and Joel Kim Booster, some of Jane Austen’s most beloved characters are about to get a modern, queer-inclusive update.
Yang and Booster will lead the cast of “Fire Island,” a gay-themed romantic comedy loosely based on “Pride and Prejudice,” Variety reported on Wednesday. The movie will follow two friends as they embark on a weeklong vacation to Fire Island — New York’s premier gay resort ― “with the help of cheap rosé and a cadre of eclectic friends,” according to the report.
Booster, whose résumé includes the TV series “Sunnyside” and “Shrill,” will write the “Fire Island” script. The movie will be directed by Andrew Ahn, who explored themes of identity and intersectionality in the 2016 film “Spa Night” and 2018 Sundance Now series, “This Close.”
“Fire Island” will stream on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ under the Star brand globally. A release date was not publicly announced.
News of the project comes amid a litany of queer-inclusive programming on Hulu, which is owned by Disney. The streaming network scored a holiday hit in December with “Happiest Season,” a queer Christmas comedy starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis. Season 2 of the gay teen series “Love, Victor” debuted to great acclaim in June.
And if there’s anyone well-suited to adapting Austen for a modern audience, it’s Booster, who gushed about his love of “Pride and Prejudice” in a 2018 interview with HuffPost.
Though the book was first published in 1813, its satirical take on relationships and class structure “feels so relevant to gay social mores,” Booster said then. “Whenever I see that reflected in a Victorian novel, that’s so funny to me.”
As for amplifying Asian voices on-screen, the Korean native added: “We are so thirsty to see ourselves represented. And thirsty to support one another. It’s a community that really puts its money where its mouth is.”