In the age of remakes and sequels, moviegoers are searching for fresh, new stories in cinema. With this call for different storylines, producers and actors are turning to books being made into movies and TV shows, including Anne Hathaway, who is starring and producing a new movie titled “The Idea of You,” which is based on Harry Styles and his former band, One Direction.
Fan fictions, or “fan fics,” are popular among fandoms of books, TV shows and movies and musicians. There are various fan fictions about “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars” and the most popular topic, Styles and One Direction. Some fans even go as far as printing their own hard copies of fan fictions.
“I haven’t really ever read any type of fan fiction, but I have watched a lot of things that afterwards, I found out were fan fics, like the ‘After’ movies,” said Sara Thomas, a freshman nursing major. “I had no clue those were supposed to be fan fics at all.”
Many fan fics are posted anonymously on the app Wattpad, a web novel site where anyone can upload self-published novels. Some recent movies and shows have been based on works that were originally posted on the site, including “Perfect Addiction,” starring Ross Butler, which received over 81 million reads on Wattpad, and the Netflix hit movie “The Kissing Booth” was also originally posted as a Wattpad novel.
While neither of those stories were based on any preexisting intellectual work or person, a great deal of popular movies and shows have their original roots in fan fiction.
The “After” movie series were originally posted on Wattpad as a Styles and One Direction fan fiction. “Fifty Shades of Grey” and “Gabriel’s Inferno” were based on Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” characters. Cassandra Clare’s popular fantasy series “The Mortal Instruments” was originally based on her “Harry Potter” fan fiction that she had posted years prior to the release of the series.
Anne Hathaway’s new film, starring herself as well as actor Nicholas Galitzine, known for “Red, White & Royal Blue,” another fan fic-to-film adaptation. “The Idea of You” author Robinne Lee claims that she based her romance novel off of Styles after watching a YouTube video of him performing. Lee claims after she discovered Styles had a penchant for dating older women, the novel unfolded in her mind.
“Fan fics are very entertaining, and it is crazy to me how some people can just imagine these stories in their heads and how you can feel like you can be in a person’s brain,” said Meredith Brown, a freshman exercise science major. “I question how some people come up with some of them, but I love them.”
With all these movies and shows taking ideas and plot lines from fan fictions, many wonder where the entertainment industry’s creativity has gone. The pipeline from Styles fan fics to movies seems like the most popular storyline adaptation, but some question if it could be an invasion of privacy.
With stories like “After,” a particularly steamy series, and “The Idea of You” following suit, fan fictions could potentially cause discomfort for the celebrities they are based on.
