Recently, a seven-figure deal was announced for a movie adaptation of Alchemised by SenLinYu, a fantasy romance novel with a surprising origin. Alchemised began as “Manacaled”, a Harry Potter fanfiction which imagines a relationship between characters Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, or “Dramione” as fans dubbed them. After amassing over 10 million views on the fanfiction platform Archive of Our Own and blowing up on the #BookTok corner of TikTok, the story, now stripped of any copyright-infringing elements, is being published as a novel later this month, with a feature film adaptation to follow.
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Hollywood has been pulling from web fiction and fanfiction more and more over the past decades, and there are five movies that you may not have realized began as a fan’s riff on their favorite media.
5) Red, White, and Royal Blue
The queer romance between the U.S. President’s son and a British prince began as a novel by Casey Quinton before it became a smash hit on streaming. But did you know that McQuiston’s novel allegedly began as fanfiction that imagined a romance between The Social Network co-stars Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. McQuiston was active in fan communities, and the alternate universe trope, which puts one’s favorite characters in different settings, is one of the most popular in fanfiction. While we would have loved to see Eisenberg as the American Alex and Andrew Garfield as English royalty, Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine did the enemies-to-lovers romance justice onscreen.
4) Wicked
Most modern audiences know that last year’s blockbuster Wicked was based on the Broadway musical of the same name, but they may not know the musical was adapted from Gregory Maguire’s novel, which was published thirty years ago. Though the story has been told in a variety of media, and Maguire’s novel was a trade publication, the revisionist take on the Wizard of Oz‘s Wicked Witch of the West does qualify as fanfiction. Maguire riffed and added much to the Wicked Witch Elphaba’s story, none of which Oz’s creator, Frank L. Baum, dove into during his books about Dorothy and the land somewhere over the rainbow.
3) After
After may be a teen classic romance where good girl Tessa falls for bad boy Hardin, yet its origins are a bit more unconventional. Author Anna Todd wrote After as One Direction real person fanfiction between a fictional female protagonist and the band’s unofficial lead singer, Harry Styles. The story was a hit on the web fiction platform Wattpad, which led to its onscreen adaptation. The film grossed an impressive $69 million at the box office against its $14 million budget and led to a sequel, proving that the story had a decent amount of legs even after its famous love interest was removed.
2) The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
In the case of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, the story behind the Screen Gems film is even more salacious than the story itself. The Mortal Instruments is based on a Harry Potter fanfiction that pairs Ron and Ginny Weasley together. Yes, you read that right. It began as an incest fic.
When author Cassandra Clare made the story trade-publisher-friendly, she changed the narrative so that the lead characters Clary and Jace were fake siblings. Still, the implication of incest was likely enough to make the film bomb at the box office, along with Clare’s plagiarism in her past fanfiction stories, which stirred up quite the war in Harry Potter online fan communities. We’re hoping Alchemised fares better at the box office; at least her protagonists have no sibling relationship whatsoever.
1) Fifty Shades of Grey
That’s right, the kinky fave of middle-aged women everywhere began as a love story between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen of Twilight – not Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. Author E.L. James published the alternate universe erotica as “Master of the Universe” before changing it into the smash hit series we know today. Fifty Shades is by far the most successful fanfiction adaptation on our list, seeing as it became a film trilogy that cumulatively grossed over a billion dollars at the box office, while launching the careers of Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.
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