‘The Girls On The Bus’ Moves To HBO Max With Series Order For Drama

The Girls on the Bus‘ long journey to the small screen has come to a successful conclusion with a straight-to-series order at HBO Max.

The drama series adaptation of Amy Chozick’s best-selling book Chasing Hillary, from Julie Plec, Chozick, Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. TV, originally landed at Netflix with a series order two and a half years ago and moved to the CW for development earlier in this broadcast cycle.

The project did not go to pilot at the broadcast network co-owned by Warner Bros. and ViacomCBS, though CW brass were interested in pursuing the project as a collaboration with WBTV corporate sibling streamer HBO Max, I hear. That is not in consideration at the moment for the series, which has started casting its leads, sources said.

2022 HBO Max Series & Pilot Orders

Written by Plec and Chozick, the series is inspired by “The Girls on the Bus” chapter in Chozick’s book Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns and One Intact Glass Ceiling. The chapter is a take on the famous 1973 book The Boys on the Bus, about the male reporters who used to dominate the campaign trail. The character-driven comedic drama series chronicles four female journalists who follow every move of a parade of flawed presidential candidates while finding friendship, love, and scandal along the way. The series focuses on the lives of the female journalists.

For a decade, award-winning New York Times journalist Chozick chronicled Hillary Clinton’s pursuit of the presidency, including her unsuccessful 2008 and 2016 campaigns. While the book provides a candid and rollicking firsthand account of the Clinton 2016 campaign’s unraveling and her surprising loss to Donald Trump, the TV series is not about Clinton or the 2016 U.S. presidential election and will feature fictional candidates.

Chozick’s Chasing Hillary was published by HarperCollins in April 2018.

Plec executive produces via her My So-Called Company, along with Chozick. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and David Madden for Berlanti Productions via its overall deal with WBTV.

This is Chozick’s second project at HBO Max with Berlanti Prods. and WBTV. She also created and is executive producing drama pilot More, about a family of influential businesswomen, with Natalie Chaidez co-showrunning.