To Tweet this Release: https://goo.gl/mWuAzt
(Los Angeles, CA) August 21, 2017 – Omnia Media, a digital content studio that creates and develops premium original programming, has optioned the rights to Sarong Party Girls for an adaptation into a one-hour comedic drama series. Written by New York-based, Singaporean author and journalist Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, the comedic novel topped Singapore’s The Straits Times best-selling list for 28 consecutive weeks this year.
Sarong Party Girls features Jazzy, on the edge of 27, whose main goal at this point in her life is to party, and marry an expat, in order to escape her routine lifestyle. Razor-sharp, spunky and vulgarly brand-obsessed, Jazzy is a determined woman who doesn’t lose. As she fervently pursues her quest to find a husband, this bombastic, yet tenderly, vulnerable gold-digger reveals the contentious gender politics and class tensions thrumming beneath the shiny exterior of Singapore’s glamorous nightclubs and busy streets, its grubby wet markets and seedy hawker centers. Moving through her colorful, stratified world, she realizes she cannot ignore the troubling incongruity of new money and old-world attitudes which threaten to crush her dreams. Vividly told in Singlish—colorful Singaporean English with its distinctive cadence and slang—Sarong Party Girls brilliantly captures the unique voice of this young, striving woman caught between worlds.
“In her book, Sarong Party Girls, Cheryl has created an amazing world that feels authentic, distinct and real. The rambunctious, free spirit lifestyle captured in Jazzy’s character leaves the audience feeling as if they can identify and connect with her on an emotional level,” said Dan Lubetkin, Chief Content Officer, Omnia Media. “Optioning Sarong Party Girls is a natural fit with our strategy to develop, create and deliver compelling original content that captures the attention of a highly engaged millennial audience.”
Sarong Party Girls was published in July 2016 by HarperCollins and is distributed throughout Asia, the United States and Canada.
“I’m beyond delighted to work with Omnia Media on sharing Jazzy’s story and what it can be like to be a woman in modern Asia,” said Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Author, Sarong Party Girls. “I am very much looking forward to seeing Sarong Party Girls come to life on screen!”
The deal marks Omnia Media’s latest project in development after launching its digital production studio earlier this year. Sarong Party Girls joins the studio’s current slate, which includes digital kids series Kings of Atlantis, created in partnership with YouTube and released in March on YouTube Kids for YouTube Red subscribers.
About Cheryl Lu-Lian Tan, author of Sarong Party Girls
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, born and raised in Singapore, is a New York–based journalist and author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family and edited the fiction anthology Singapore Noir. She has been a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, InStyle magazine and the Baltimore Sun.
About Omnia Media
Omnia Media, based in Los Angeles, is a digital content studio connecting passionate communities through immersive storytelling. Working with a roster of top talent and trendsetters, Omnia creates original content for third party distributors, including YouTube Originals. The company’s publishing portfolio has amassed over two billion monthly views and a social media footprint of over 200 million followers. Omnia Media is a wholly owned subsidiary of international media and content company Blue Ant Media.
-30-