Nellie Andreeva

Paramount is close to giving the green light to a coming-of-age teen movie from Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, creators of the British comedy series The Inbetweeners and writers of the smash UK feature it spawned. The U.S. film, written by Beesley and Morris and to be directed by Morris in his American feature directorial debut, is inspired by the 2011 Inbetweeners movie about four teenage friends’ post-high school graduation holiday in Crete. Said to be in the same raunchy tone, the Paramount feature, budgeted at approximately $15 million, revolves around four boys just out of high school who go on a road trip to an exotic locale. The characters are different than those in Inbetweeners as the concept is being Americanized. Beesley and Morris will produce the film through their company Bwark Prods. along with Aaron Kaplan through his Kapital Entertainment. This marks the feature producing debut for Kaplan, who also is collaborating with Beesley and Morris on MTV’s upcoming series adaptation of The Inbetweeners, written/showrun by Brad Copeland, which premieres Aug. 20.

As for The Inbetweeners movie, a sleeper that has grossed more than $70 million in the UK on a $5.5 million budget, Wrekin Hill Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights and plans to release the Ben Palmer-directed film theatrically later this year. Morris, who recently directed the first-season finale of MTV’s The Inbetweeners, and Beesley are with CAA.

TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.