Disney has built its reputation as the place where magic comes to life. The conglomerate is one of the biggest companies, having properties across various media verticals and theme parks. Much of Disney’s success comes from its commitment to producing high-quality stories across multiple genres, including fantasy and romance. Disney owns recognizable IPs like Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and the extensive library of classic Disney Animation. By strategically acquiring massive entertainment powerhouses, the company has transformed itself from a traditional animation studio into an unparalleled global media empire.
By continuously innovating while leveraging nostalgia, Disney maintains its tight grip on global entertainment, proving that its true magic lies in its unmatched ability to turn creative storytelling into a multi-billion-dollar corporate empire. But just as people love those classic Disney stories, every company must offer something new to keep people coming back, and Disney has been committed to developing original ideas. Deadline reports that the company has officially acquired the rights to Rebecca Ross‘ romance-fantasy book Divine Rivals. Disney swooped in to take those rights from Paramount, which won them in a bidding war in June 2025, but they lapsed when Paramount was merging with SkyDance.
Divine Rivals is part of Ross’ Letters of Enchantment duology. It was published in April 2023 and was followed by its sequel, Ruthless Vows, in December of the same year. Divine Rivals has sold over one million copies and built a strong online following, especially on BookTok. When Paramount acquired the rights, Sofia Alvarez, who adapted Netflix‘s hit romance film To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, was attached to write, but when the rights lapsed, so was her commitment. Disney is looking for another writer to pen the screenplay.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Romance Is Your Favorite? Harry & Sally · Love & Basketball · Heated Rivalry · Titanic
Four great love stories, and four completely different ideas of what love actually is. One is a friendship that took twelve years to admit itself. One is two people who refuse to stop competing. One happens entirely behind closed doors. And one lasts five days and never stops mattering. Eight questions decide which one is really yours.
🍂Harry & Sally(1989)
🏀Love & Basketball(2000)
🏒Heated Rivalry(HBO Max)
🚢Titanic(1997)
01
How does your love story start? The first scene tells you what kind of story this is going to be.
02
What do the two of you keep arguing about? Every great romance has one fight it has over and over.
03
How do you show somebody that you love them? Grand gestures are easy to write. This is the harder question.
04
What is actually standing in the way? There is always something. Which something tells you the genre.
05
Which romantic moment gets you every single time? Be honest. There is one that works on you and you know which.
06
What would you actually risk for the right person? Every romance asks this. Most people find out far too late.
07
Where are the two of you in ten years? Some love stories are about the meeting. Some are about the staying.
08
Which of these sounds most like something you would say? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your romance.
Roll The Credits Your Romance Is…
Four love stories, four completely different ideas of what it means to
be somebody’s person. This is the one that matches how you actually fall, and what it would ask of
you.
When Harry Met Sally · 1989
Harry & Sally
You do not fall for strangers. You fall for the person you have
already been talking to for years, which is the slowest and by some distance the most
durable way anybody has found to do this.
When Harry Met Sally made the case that the best romance is an argument you enjoy,
conducted over a decade, by two people refusing to admit what is happening.
You want to be known rather than swept away. Somebody who remembers your worst story is
doing better work than anybody arriving with flowers.
The film is unusually honest about timing. These two are wrong for each other repeatedly
until suddenly they are not, and neither of them engineered it.
You would still be talking about everything at eighty. That is the entire promise.
Love & Basketball · 2000
Love & Basketball
You want a partner, not an audience. Somebody who wants their own
life as badly as you want yours, and who would never ask you to be smaller to make the
relationship easier.
This is the rare romance where both people have a real career and the film takes both of
them equally seriously.
You would rather be pushed than protected. The right person for you is also a bit of a
rival, and that never entirely goes away.
It understands the actual problem in ambitious relationships. Not whether you love each
other, but whose turn it is this year.
You would still be competing at forty. That is how you would know it was working.
Heated Rivalry · Rachel Reid · HBO Max 2025
Heated Rivalry
The intensity was never the problem. The secrecy is. You are
drawn to a love that lives entirely in private, and to the particular ache of wanting
somebody you are not supposed to want.
Heated Rivalry runs on the oldest engine in romance: two people on opposite sides,
meeting in secret, getting far more attached than either of them planned.
You keep your private life genuinely private, and something in you finds hidden things
more real than public ones.
The tension is not only between the two of them. It is between what they have and what
it would cost either one to say it out loud.
Years of this, and the whole story is really about whether either of them will finally
stop hiding.
Titanic · 1997
Titanic
You do not do this cautiously. When it happens for you it is
immediate and total and it rearranges everything, and you would not accept a smaller version
of it.
Titanic gave us the biggest romance in film history and then made it last about five
days, which is precisely the point of it.
You measure love by intensity rather than duration. A few days of the real thing beats
decades of something merely comfortable.
The film is not only about the romance. It is about a woman who went on to live an
enormous life afterwards because of it.
You would still be telling this story at a hundred years old, and telling it exactly the
same way.
What Is ‘Divine Rivals’ About?
Divine Rivals brings enemies to lovers in a manner you’ve never seen before through Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt. They both work for the newspaper Oath Gazette but are competitors. Meanwhile, at home, Iris is dealing with family problems after her brother disappears. He was forced to fight for the Gods and went missing from the front lines, causing a lot of pain to him and Iris’ mother. Iris’ letters to her brother fall into Roman’s hands, sparking an unlikely magical connection. “Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?” the novel poses.
Divine Rivals is in the early stages of film production. We’ll keep you updated about its progress, including when casting gets announced.
