ABC Family picks up Cassandra Clare's book series 'Shadowhunters'

Fans of the YA series Mortal Instruments are about to see their favorite characters get a lot more screen time. ABC Family announced that it’s put in a straight-to-series order for Shadowhunters, a drama based on Cassandra Clare’s popular series of novels. According to The Hollywood Reporter there haven’t been any casting choices made yet, but production is going to start in May.

So what is this series about?

Based on the six best-selling young adult fantasy book series, Shadowhunters follows 18 year old Clary Fray, who finds out on her birthday that she is not who she thinks she is, but rather comes from a long line of Shadowhunters — human-angel hybrids who hunt down demons. When her mother Jocelyn is kidnapped, Clary is thrown into the world of demon hunting with mysterious Shadowhunter Jace and her best friend, Simon. Now living among faeries, warlocks, vampires and werewolves, Clary begins a journey of self-discovery as she learns more about her past and what her future may hold.

That sounds dope—I’m always going to be a proponent of a YA series with a strong female lead, and I like that she’s going on these strange adventures with her best friend.

Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was already made into a movie in 2013. It didn’t do poorly, but it also wasn’t great; now that the television landscape includes hits like Grimm and Once Upon A Time, a TV series might give Shadowhunters more of a chance to find the audience and rhythm that big-budget movies sometimes fail to do.

(Fusion is partly owned by Disney’s ABC network.)

Danielle Henderson is a lapsed academic, heavy metal karaoke machine, and culture editor at Fusion. She enjoys thinking about how race, gender, and sexuality shape our cultural narratives, but not in a boring way.