Poppy and Alex—the romantic leads of Emily Henry’s bestselling novel People We Meet on Vacation—are embarking on a world tour. With a film adaptation of Henry’s 2021 book officially in the works, whoever’s lucky enough to play the polar-opposite pair will need a few spare pages in their passports.
The romantic comedy will follow the book’s slow-burn love story of two longtime BFFs. Every year, Poppy and Alex spend a weeklong vacation together in some form of paradise. But ever since their disastrous trip to Croatia, they’ve considered the other persona non grata. So Poppy devises a Hail Mary to rescue their friendship: She’ll invite Alex on one final trip to Palm Springs, where umbrella drinks and sunny skies can surely clarify exactly what’s between them.
Henry and her collaborators first announced the adaptation news in October 2022, and while production has yet to officially launch, the project is in active development. Brett Haley (Hearts Beat Loud) is signed up to direct, with Henry’s fellow romance author Yulin Kuang (I Ship It, Dollface) adapting the screenplay.
The book first debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2021 and sold more than one million copies in the U.S. As Kuang outlined for ELLE.com in April 2024, she first read the manuscript of People We Meet on Vacation and thought, “There’s more locations than a James Bond movie in here.” But, she continued, the story “is doing what I want to do in terms of romance and reinvigorating the genre. I think rom-coms can have this flattened feeling, sometimes, because we associate comedy with it so much. But I think there are things on the bluer side of the human emotional spectrum within Emily’s work that I really resonate with.”
Most recently, in March 2024, Henry shared with Variety that the People We Meet on Vacation screenplay “has gone through a lot of different drafts” but should “be ready very soon,” adding that she speaks with Haley “at least weekly” for progress updates.
No cast news has been made public just yet, but EmHen fans should rest assured she understands the importance of picking the right Poppy and Alex. “I trust the directors that we have, and I think that they really get it,” she told Variety. “They also know that I’m always watching my readers, and I want them to be happy. So in my involvement in every single adaptation, my main goal is to represent the readers’ interests.”
This story will be updated.
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