Gavin Leatherwood has joined the cast of the romantic comedy It Happened One Summer, with cameras now rolling in New York. The film adapts Tessa Bailey's 2021 bestseller of the same name — the first book in her Bellinger Sisters series, a novel that has sold two million copies in the U.S. alone and been translated into 25 languages (Variety).

Leatherwood will play Fox Thornton, a fisherman and the best friend of Brendan, the gruff sea captain portrayed by Tyler Hoechlin. Nina Dobrev leads the cast as Piper Bellinger, an L.A. socialite exiled to a small fishing town after a viral mishap gets her cancelled — with an ultimatum from her stepfather to fix up her late father's dive bar. Virginia Gardner rounds out the principal cast as Piper's sister, completing the Bellinger siblings at the story's centre (Deadline).

Peter Hutchings directs from a screenplay by Christina Mengert and Joseph Muszynski. BCDF Pictures produces, with CEO Claude Dal Farra taking a producer credit; Frolic Media serves as executive producer. Bailey herself holds an executive producer credit alongside Dobrev, Hoechlin, and Gardner — a sign the author retains a seat at the table as her work moves to the screen (Deadline).

For the international market, Embankment handles worldwide sales and has extensively pre-sold the title — meaning distribution deals in individual territories were locked ahead of production, a common arrangement that lets independent films secure financing against promised revenue from foreign buyers (Variety).

Leatherwood is best known to streaming audiences from Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and HBO Max's The Sex Lives of College Girls. His most recent film credit, Netflix's It's What's Inside, premiered at Sundance and was acquired by the streamer for $17 million. He is represented by Verve and Entertainment 360 (Deadline).

For fans of the book, the cast lineup is now set and the production is underway — which puts a theatrical rom-com adaptation of a beloved bestseller on track for audiences to see, likely sometime in 2027.