Best-selling queer novel The Charm Offensive getting major adaptation

Alison Cochrun’s best-selling queer romance novel The Charm Offensive is set for a major movie adaptation, starring Atypical actor Nik Dodani. 

Released in 2021, the book follows Dev Deshpande, a high-flying producer on a romance reality show, who is famed for creating success stories despite his own faltering love life.

When disgraced, cold and socially awkward tech billionaire Charlie Winshaw joins the show as a contestant ostensibly on the hunt for love, but actually in search of an image rehabilitation, Dev has work cut out for him. As they try to reinvigorate Charlie’s love life with one of the women on the show, Charlie slowly realises it’s Dev he’s falling for.

The movie is described as “Heated Rivalry meets The Devil Wears Prada,” as per Deadline. The screenplay will be written by Erin Williams and Shawn K. Jain, and produced by producers Alex Liu and Leo Neri.

Dodani, who is best known for playing Zahid Raja in all four seasons of Netflix’s queer hit Atypical, is set to star as producer Dev.

In a statement to Deadline, the actor, who has also starred in Dear Evan Hansen and Glen Powell’s disaster movie Twisters, said that he “loved” Cochrun’s novel when he first read it.

“No matter how bad things get in the world, it’s a comfort to know we’re always going to have more gay s**t to watch,” he said.

“I loved the novel when it was published, and Erin and Shawn’s script is such a fun read. I’ve been waiting for the role that would finally get me into the gym…”

Upon its release in 2021, The Charm Offensive became a hit on TikTok subsection BookTok, particularly with queer audiences. It was praised at the time for its “quippy banter, and red-hot sexual chemistry” plus its “thoughtful and caring exploration of gay love and the mental health struggles people with social anxiety and depression deal with”.

No spoilers here, but it also features much-needed representation of the spectrum of asexuality.

It has been likened to Casey McQuiston’s hit Red, White & Royal Blue, which also became a major movie sensation in 2023.

On Goodreads, The Charm Offensive has an impressive four-star rating out of almost 80,000 reviews, and was nominated in the website’s 2021 Readers’ Favourite Romance award category.

On social media, reaction to the The Charm Offensive film adaptation has been loud.

“I am about to be absolutely INSUFFERABLE,” wrote one fan on X, formerly Twitter. “As a brown person who is also [asexual], this book means absolutely f**king EVERYTHING to me. I am just so emotional that i am going to get to see Dev and Charlie my babies.”

“Genuinely have been recommending this book to people for years and I simply cannot believe we are getting a film,” a second wrote.

Anyone else geeking out about the news that The Charm Offensive is being adapted or is it just me losing my shit over here????

— Nico 👑🍑 (@lilyrozanov) January 15, 2026

If you’re in line for the charm offensive adaptation STAY IN LINE!!!!!!! https://t.co/pY715eZ9FB pic.twitter.com/kUZzVXhEIS

— monica (@ClTYOFMON) January 15, 2026

A third added: “So exciting! I had been hoping for an adaptation of this for a long time. It’s one of my most listened to audiobooks.”

A fourth fan has gone semi-viral for urging Heated Rivalry director Jacob Tierney to direct an an adaptation of The Charm Offensive back in December, when Heated Rivalry was still in the early stages of its popularity.

At the time of writing, no director has been attached to The Charm Offensive.

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