A baby changes everything—especially when it’s Conrad’s. 🌊👶
The Summer I Turned Pretty movie trailer just unleashed the ultimate twist: Belly’s facing motherhood with Conrad by her side, but secrets from Cousins Beach could tear their fresh start apart. Will love conquer the chaos? This reveal will wreck you…
Watch the full trailer and spill your theories below:
The sun-kissed sands of Cousins Beach are about to get a whole lot more complicated, and not just with another round of volleyball drama. Prime Video stunned fans still nursing hangovers from the Summer I Turned Pretty series finale by releasing the first teaser trailer for the upcoming feature film on Friday, igniting a social media storm that has #ConradsBaby trending worldwide. Titled simply The Summer I Turned Pretty: The Movie, this 2-minute, 15-second clip—scored to a stripped-down Taylor Swift cover of “Soon You’ll Get Better”—picks up threads from the show’s emotional close, where Belly Conklin (Lola Tung) finally chose Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney) over his brother Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). But the trailer’s true gut-punch? A positive pregnancy test clutched in Belly’s trembling hand, followed by a sonogram image revealing Conrad’s name etched on the file. It’s a seismic shift for the YA romance juggernaut, transforming Han’s nostalgic trilogy into a tale of adult reckonings, family legacies, and the messy miracle of new life. As the franchise, which has raked in over $250 million in streaming and merch since 2022, eyes a theatrical and Prime Video hybrid release, this baby bombshell isn’t just fanbait—it’s a narrative grenade lobbed straight at the heart of Belly’s hard-won happily-ever-after.
For those late to the beach party, The Summer I Turned Pretty—adapted from Jenny Han’s 2009-2011 book trilogy—has been a sun-soaked obsession, blending first-love pangs with the ache of growing up. The series followed Isabel “Belly” Conklin, a New England teen whose annual pilgrimages to the Fishers’ Cousins Beach estate sparked a torturous love triangle with brooding Conrad and his carefree brother Jeremiah. Season 1’s innocent flirtations drew 14 million viewers in week one, exploding into TikTok virality with Swift-synced edits and “Team Conrad” vs. “Team Jeremiah” wars that mirrored Twilight‘s fervor. Season 2 amped the heartbreak with proposals and betrayals, while the 11-episode Season 3—wrapping September 17, 2025—vaulted Belly into her early 20s, complete with a botched engagement to Jeremiah, a soul-searching Paris detour, and a tearful reunion with Conrad on a rain-slicked train platform. The finale, viewed by 28 million globally in its debut week, closed on Belly and Conrad returning to the beach house, their foreheads pressed together under Christmas lights, whispering vows of forever. No wedding bells rang—yet—but Han teased in a Variety interview that “milestones await,” leaving Sassenach-level speculation to fester.
The trailer, unveiled during a glitzy Los Angeles fan event, opens with that iconic swell of ocean waves crashing against the Cousins shore, now framed by autumn leaves—a subtle nod to time’s relentless march. Belly, her hair longer and her eyes carrying the weight of post-college drift, stands on the boardwalk, one hand absently cradling her midsection. Cut to a montage of domestic bliss laced with tension: Conrad, now a marine biologist with salt-streaked curls and a Stanford lab coat, kneeling before her with an ultrasound wand, his face a mosaic of awe and terror. “We’re having a baby,” Belly’s voiceover confesses softly, over footage of them painting a nursery in the old Fisher attic, tiny onesies dangling from clotheslines like white flags of surrender. But the idyll fractures fast—a heated whisper-fight in the beach house kitchen, Jeremiah’s shadow lurking at a family barbecue, his eyes flicking to Belly’s subtle bump with unspoken accusation. “You think this fixes us?” Casalegno’s Jeremiah snaps in a dimly lit deck scene, beer bottle shattering on the railing. The trailer’s emotional core lands in a gut-wrenching reveal: a flashback to that Paris cafĂ© spotting, where Conrad’s letter—teased in Season 3—confesses not just love, but a buried secret from their separation: a one-night stand that could make the baby Jeremiah’s. Or is it? The ambiguity is chef’s-kiss cruel, with Han confirming in a post-trailer Entertainment Weekly chat that the film explores “the terrifying beauty of unintended family,” drawing from her unpublished epilogue drafts where Belly grapples with legacy and loss.
Han, 42 and riding high from To All the Boys triumphs, steps behind the camera for her feature directorial debut, co-writing with showrunner Sarah Kucserka. “The series gave us the summers of youth; the movie delivers the seasons of adulthood,” Han told The Hollywood Reporter at the trailer’s premiere, hinting at a plot that fast-forwards two years post-finale. Production kicked off in secrecy last month in Wilmington, North Carolina—eternal Cousins stand-in—with principal photography wrapping by November for a $20 million budget (a step up from the series’ $15 million-per-season average, funding ocean VFX and a star-studded cameo roster). Tung, 23 and Emmy-buzzed for her nuanced Belly evolution, described the pregnancy arc as “liberating terror” in a Glamour profile: “Belly’s always chosen heart over head; now, it’s heart, head, and a tiny heartbeat calling the shots.” Briney, 27, whose Conrad has become YA’s brooding benchmark, echoed the stakes in Men’s Health: “Fatherhood humanizes him—rips away the mystery, leaves the man.” Casalegno, facing the film’s emotional minefield, teased Jeremiah’s pivot to a nomadic surf pro, his resentment bubbling into reluctant uncle duties. The ensemble returns en force: Kyra Sedgwick’s Susannah haunts via ethereal flashbacks, Jackie Chung’s Laurel pens a memoir exposing Fisher skeletons, Sean Kaufman’s Steven thrives in San Francisco tech, and Rain Spencer’s Taylor crashes the baby shower with brutal honesty. New blood includes a pediatrician love interest for Jeremiah (rumored Euphoria alum Jacob Elordi) and a midwife mentor for Belly (Oscar winner Viola Davis in talks), amplifying themes of chosen family amid biological bombshells.
Critically, the franchise has matured like fine beach wine—from Season 1’s 92% Rotten Tomatoes froth to Season 3’s 82% acclaim for its grief-and-growth pivot—though purists griped at the Paris detour’s “fanfic gloss,” per IndieWire. The trailer’s baby twist, a bold Han invention beyond the books’ altar-ending, has split the fandom: Reddit’s r/TSITP (450,000 members) erupted with threads like u/Bonrad4Ever’s “Pregnancy Plot Savior or Series Killer?” (6,000 upvotes), praising the “real-talk romance” while decrying potential “soap opera swerve.” X lit up with 1.2 million mentions in 24 hours; Tung’s cryptic post—a sonogram silhouette captioned “Tiny waves incoming 🌊”—netted 2.5 million likes, while Briney’s moody beach stroll reel (“Daddies don’t cry… much”) sparked 800,000 shares. Han fanned the flames with an Instagram Live: “This isn’t about shock—it’s about what comes after the choice. Love, legacy, little feet on the sand.” Detractors, like Vulture‘s viral op-ed, warn of “milking the milestone,” but Prime Video’s Vernon Sanders countered in Deadline: “Han’s vision demanded the big screen; this baby binds the beach eternal.”
The trailer’s cinematography—lensed by The White Lotus vet Ben Kutchins—basks in golden-hour glows and nursery blues, with Swift’s handpicked tracks (including a “Lover” remix) underscoring the swell of new life. VFX teams craft dream sequences blending Cousins nostalgia with prenatal visions: Belly envisioning a toddler Conrad chasing waves, only for Jeremiah’s face to flicker in. Amid broader YA fatigue—Riverdale reboots flopping, Outer Banks winding down—the film positions as a prestige pivot, eyeing limited theatrical runs before Prime streaming in summer 2027 (delayed from 2026 for post-production polish). Merch momentum surges: “Baby Bonrad” onesies ($25) sold out in hours, outpacing Bridgerton baby bumps. Cultural ripples extend to Han’s advocacy—partnering with Planned Parenthood for on-set consultants, embedding consent and choice chats into the script.
Yet beneath the buzz lurks poignancy. Sedgwick, whose Susannah’s cancer arc gutted Season 1, returns in voiceover as the “ghost grandma,” her letters guiding Belly’s prenatal panic. “Motherhood’s the ultimate summer—endless, exhausting, eternal,” Sedgwick shared on The View. For Tung, it’s meta: “Belly’s bump mirrors my growth; from teen crush to maternal muse.” As the credits tease with a ultrasound heartbeat syncing to waves, the tagline fades in: “Some summers create legacies.” It’s a vow to fans who’ve tattooed Cousins coordinates and petitioned for spin-offs (Taylor’s solo? Denied by Han). In a content-saturated sea, The Summer I Turned Pretty movie doesn’t just extend the tide—it births a new one, proving Belly’s story, like all great loves, evolves beyond the shore.
The franchise’s endgame feels fittingly fertile: Han, eyeing a post-TSITP memoir on “writing your wild youth,” teases no sequels but “endless epilogues in readers’ hearts.” Will the baby bind or break the Fishers? Tease your popcorn—the cradle’s calling.
