Amanda’s and Laura’s origin story started in 2006 when they were both baby entertainment executives working on the Twentieth Century Fox lot.

Amanda was working for Hugh Jackman’s production company, Seed, and Laura was a creative executive at Fox where Seed had a first look deal. When the two met, it was best friendship love at first sight. They both had a deep love of reading, musical theater, the New York Yankees and Giants, travel, reading, film, television, romance and romantic comedies, white wine and caffeinated beverages - although in different forms (Laura, coffee; Amanda, Diet Coke).... And did we say reading?

Overworked and underpaid, they started to get lunch weekly and forged a bond that survived Laura leaving Los Angeles to go to business school. In 2007, they met up in Paris over Christmas break—their first of many out of town escapades. In 2012, after Laura had moved back to Los Angeles, they went to Disneyland for the first time and quickly discovered another shared love; they now refer to the pool bar at the Grand Californian Hotel as their satellite office.

While Amanda was at CBS and after Laura started Rebelle, Amanda would often feed Laura ideas of writers, scripts, and books she loved. Many of the general meetings and story ideas that followed led to Rebelle projects. Which is why it was natural that when Amanda was thinking about the next phase of her career, a partnership with Laura wasn’t even a question but a fait accompli. Neither of them really remember discussing it; it just was. 

And when they started bouncing around ideas of what this new iteration of Rebelle would be, one that had both of their stamps on it, it was immediate that they went back to their original loves, what had drawn them to want to be in the film and television business in the first place—producing stories that make you feel, laugh, and cry, that make you want to watch them over and over and over. Ones that you escape into and don’t want to come out of. Just as they had with films such as Philadelphia Story, Titanic, Ten Things I Hate About You, Clueless, Pride and Prejudice (all versions), Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Working Girl, Baby Boom, anything Nora Ephron, anything Nancy Meyers. With television shows like Friends, My So-Called Life, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek. 

Yet there has been a dearth of these films and series in the last decade. These stories have moved into the book world where they are immediate bestsellers. But the books that have lit up the bestseller lists and BookTok are rarely getting made. The audience hasn’t disappeared—as seen by the rabid fandoms both online and in person at sold out watch parties and other screening events—but the entertainment industry isn’t supplying enough to feed their insatiable appetite. Amanda and Laura have built Rebelle to change that. What their beloved Disney has done for family, Rebelle will do for love and romance. 

We are your home for the stories you want to see as well as new ones you’ll die to discover. We are the place to discuss, devour, and commune. Rebelle is romance in all its forms. It all started 20 years ago with lunch. And yes, Amanda and Laura do often say “I’ll have what she’s having.”