Actor Gavin Leatherwood, best known for "Sex Lives of College Girls" and "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina," has joined the romantic comedy "It Happened One Summer," an adaptation of Tessa Bailey's bestselling BookTok novel, with production now under way in New York. He joins an ensemble already featuring Nina Dobrev, Tyler Hoechlin and Virginia Gardner, under director Peter Hutchings, with the casting notable given the book's large fanbase and the wider trend of BookTok hits being turned into films.

Leatherwood will play Fox Thornton, a charismatic sea captain's mate, in a story following LA socialite Piper Bellinger, who is exiled to a fishing town after a viral scandal and must renovate her late father's dive bar while clashing with gruff captain Brendan, played by Hoechlin. BCDF Pictures is producing with Frolic Media, and Embankment is handling worldwide sales, having already extensively pre-sold the title; the novel has sold two million copies in the US, been translated into 25 languages, and is the first in Bailey's Bellinger Sisters series. Leatherwood most recently starred in Netflix's "It's What's Inside," which premiered at Sundance and was acquired by the streamer for $17 million.