Malin Akerman, Nadine Bhabha, Megan Follows and Matias Lucas Join Netflix’s ‘This Summer Will Be Different’ Adaptation

Malkin Akerman, Nadine Bhabha, Megan Follows and Matias Lucas have joined Netflix‘s adaptation of This Summer Will Be Different.

Akerman (The Hunting Wives, Billions) will play Aunt Stacy; Follows (Buried in Barstow) will play Cheryl; Bhabha (Heated Rivalry, Slo Pitch) will play Farah; And Matias Lucas (The Order) will play Carter. The 10-episode series, based on Carley Fortune’s popular romance novel of the same name, stars Yellowjackets and Heated Rivalry actress Sophie Nélisse as leading lady Lucy Ashby. Francesca Reale and Roby Attal join Nélisse and the new cast as Bridget Clark, Lucy’s best friend, and Felix Clark, Bridget’s brother and Lucy’s love interview, respectively.

The show’s logline describes the adaptation as “a simmering, sun-soaked romance set across multiple summers on Prince Edward Island about Lucy, a young woman navigating her 20s and her first real love with her best friend’s brother, the one person she was never supposed to fall for.”

Given its setting, Anne of Green Gables is a constant presence throughout the source material, a story newly added cast member Follows is quite familiar with. The Canadian actress played Annie Shirley in the 1985 Canadian adaptation of the novel.

This Summer Will Be Different serves as a mini-Heated Rivalry reunion for Bhabha and Nélisse. Both actresses were in the first season of the hit Canadian television show, however they never shared a scene.

This Summer Will Be Different filmed on Prince Edward Island this summer and is now shooting the rest of its season Toronto. “Filming on Prince Edward Island is such a dream of mine,” Fortune previously told THR. “Danielle [Woodrow] and Tara [Woodbury], who head up Netflix Canada, we had had a drink together before they had even read it, and I loved them. Their view on TV and film just aligned so much with how I saw things.”

The show hails from Sphere Media. THR announced the series earlier this year. Dane Clark (Suze, One More Time) and Linsey Stewart (Workin’ Moms, North of North) serve as co-showrunners and executive producers on the series. Fortune is also an executive producer, alongside Jennifer Kawaja and Elise Cousineau for Sphere Media.

Fortune’s other TV adaptation, Every Summer After, recently scored a renewal from Prime Video for its second season. Fortune, along with the showrunner Amy B. Harris and actors Matt Cornett and Michael Bradway, announced that the show has been picked up for a second season at the YA fan-focused event Obsessed Fest.

This Summer Will Be Different joins a growing Canadian slate at Netflix, which first launched its domestic slate in the country in 2025. North of North, Wayward, which also hails from Sphere Media, Who Killed the Montreal Expos?, an untitled Newfoundland project and The Granville Girls round out the streamer’s Canadian lineup.