Deadline reports exclusively that Sony Pictures has acquired feature rights to The Heartstring Duet, Liv Zander's bestselling dark fantasy romance series consisting of Crown Me Dead and Crown Me Yours, which the outlet says blend dark fantasy, horror and romance.

The books went viral after Zander self-published them just one week apart this past April. Zander is represented by Untitled, Maggie Marr Legal and Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management, according to Deadline.

The virality is measurable. Deadline reports that upon publication this spring, Crown Me Dead climbed to No. 5 among all eBooks on Amazon, and that together the two books have amassed more than 100 million Kindle page reads worldwide in just three and a half months.

Zander, a USA Today and Amazon bestseller already known for self-published dark fantasy romances like the Court of Ravens and Pale Court series, turned that momentum into traditional deals: Deadline says Hachette's Requited imprint took U.S. rights and HarperCollins' HQ imprint took UK rights, with the books translated into 14 languages and print editions re-released in both countries just this week.

Part of the appeal, per Deadline's exclusive, is the premise the studio is buying into. In a kingdom cursed by a deadly plague, Elara, the daughter of gravediggers, tends to the dead alongside what remains of her family.

When her brother falls ill, a mysterious palace steward offers her a bargain that could save his life: seduce the reclusive king and make him fall in love with her, breaking the curse by dying at his hand.

Deadline notes that as Elara uncovers the truth behind the curse, she must decide whether to become a willing sacrifice or fight for her own survival — a logline squarely in the dark-romance lane readers have been devouring.

The acquisition fits a wider run of literary adaptations Sony has been assembling, according to Deadline, which lists Lindsey Anderson Beer's Hollow (starring Sydney Sweeney), Michael Crichton & James Patterson's Eruption, Freida McFadden's The Surrogate Mother, Lynn Painter's Fake Skating, Katy Hays' Home Economics (starring Julia Roberts) and Don Winslow's City on Fire (starring Austin Butler).

Tulsa World separately reports that Tulsa author Daniel H. Wilson's 2011 novel Robopocalypse is now being developed as a TV series by Imagine Entertainment and Weed Road, with Oklahoma-born filmmaker Ron Howard directing the pilot and Akiva Goldsman writing it and serving as showrunner — a revival after the long-stalled Spielberg film version.