Kiera Cass stated that she began writing The Selection after thinking about the differences between Esther and Cinderella, wondering if either of them were happy with how they ended up.

[4] In a futuristic world, society is divided into castes, with Ones being the most prosperous, consisting of royals and elites, and Eights being mostly orphans/homeless, drug users, handicapped, and unemployable.

Despite pressure from her mother, America has no interest in entering the competition, because she already has Aspen, her next-door neighbor and secret boyfriend.

This upsets him, as he believes he should be the one to provide for her, but is unable to because he is a Six (the servant caste) and has no means of doing so since he already has to take care of his mother and siblings.

The end of their relationship, plus a bribe from her mother, leads America to enter the Selection and later into the palace where she has to compete with thirty-four other girls to win the prince's heart.

America easily makes friends (Marlee Tames, a Four and a farmer) and enemies (Celeste Newsome, a Two and a model) within the first week of her stay, but her unique personality also catches the attention of the palace staff and the country.

Things also become tense in the competition when America starts to feel jealous of Maxon spending time with the other Selected.

After an attack from the rebels that leads to three of the Selected leaving, Prince Maxon decides to narrow down the girls to six, calling them The Elite.

Later on the same day, Kiera Cass' literary agent, Elana Roth, posted a series of derogatory tweets on the social networking site Twitter.

Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan of DiNovi Pictures would produce alongside Pouya Shahbazian, with Katie Lovejoy to write the screenplay.

As stated in a Variety article, it is going to be directed by Saudi Arabian filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour, previously partnered with Netflix on 2018's Nappily Ever After.