‘Spring Breakers’ Set As Digital Series From Movie’s Producers & Blackpills

EXCLUSIVE: It’s the first day of spring — a good time to announce a new digital series based on the cult film Spring Breakers. The 2012 pic’s producers, Chris Hanley and Fernando Sulichin, will revisit party central via Blackpills, a soon-to-launch digital platform. The project kicks off a slate of four scripted series from the producers and Blackpills.

Hanley’s Muse Productions has secured digital rights to the film along with Blackpills and will produce the series. The movie’s writer-director Harmony Korine is not involved in the new project, for which casting is in the works.

The film starred Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine as college students who are left behind as their friends flee to South Florida for spring break. But the young women have a debilitating lack of funds to make the trip. That changes when three of them rob a restaurant, and the party is on in St. Petersburg. All get busted soon after but are bailed out by a drug dealer (James Franco), who persuades three of them to commit more robberies. Gucci Mane also starred.

“Muse has always been a pioneer in detecting new young talents, so they perfectly complement our vision at Blackpills,” the new-media’s company’s co-founder Patrick Holzman said. “We want to engage new audiences by releasing Spring Breakers in an unconventional digital format beyond one typical for movies. Muse’s passion for new progressive formats excites us and marks the start of a long partnership.”

Hanley, who says the micro-episodic format is “the future of digital media,” has produced such pics as American Psycho, The Virgin Suicides and Buffalo ’66. Sulichin’s recent producing credits include Snowden and Gimme Danger. He and Hanley have collaborated on a number of projects including the Oliver Stone-directed 2012 Showtime docuseries The Untold History of the United States.

Co-founded by Canal+ alum and AlloCiné co-founder Holzman and Deezer co-founder Daniel Marhely, Blackpills specializes in short scripted premium content. It has offices in Los Angeles, Paris and Tel Aviv and will launch its mobile platform soon.