WENLEI MA: The Love Hypothesis proves fan fiction used to be a little embarrassing, now it’s a powerful source
WENLEI MA: The most interesting thing about The Love Hypothesis is its off-screen origin story, and where it sits in a trend that not long ago would’ve been considered a little embarrassing.
Perhaps you’ve already seen The Love Hypothesis?
The film was released last week on Prime Video. The movie is … fine. It’s neither great nor terrible, it’s just something which exists, a two-hour diversion with which to kill time.
Sure, Lili Reinhart (Riverdale) is quite likeable, and there is something semi-appealing about a story that is so predictable you could guess every beat before pressing play thanks to its fidelity to rom-com tropes including enemies-turned-lovers and fake-dating schemes.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.It’s all by-the-by, and it will certainly have its fans. Its director, Claire Scanlon, has done better work before, and if you’re curious about that, do check out Set It Up.
What’s actually interesting about The Love Hypothesis is the not the movie itself, but the background.
It’s an adaptation of a book by romance novelist Ali Hazelwood who started her publishing career as a fan fiction writer online. More specifically, The Love Hypothesis with its cheery female hero and gloomy male interest began as Star Wars Reylo fan fiction, Reylo being the mash-up of Rey and Kylo Ren.
The two characters are the opposing forces of light and dark in the newest trilogy, starting with 2015 film The Force Awakens, played by Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver. The male lead in The Love Hypothesis is even named Adam.
And to up the ante in the meta stakes, Adam in the movie adaptation is played by Tom Bateman, who in real life is married to Ridley. There’s also the matter of his Adam’s all-black wardrobe, as befitting a Star Wars Sith lord, and the use of a Gracie Abrams song (Abram’s dad is J.J. Abrams, who directed The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker).
In an earlier era, an origin story as Star Wars fan fiction may be something to be hidden, but in 2026, the filmmakers are leaning into it. It reflects the growing cultural power of fan fiction and the likes of platforms such as Wattpad.
The most well-known, and pioneering, example is Fifty Shades of Grey, which author E.L. James morphed from Twilight fan fiction she wrote called Masters of the Universe, under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon.
Twilight, the vampire romance was notoriously chaste, partly as a result of author Stephenie Meyer’s Mormon faith, and James injected overt sexuality and BDSM into a source text that was all yearning and no follow-through.
James’ trilogy of Fifty Shades books was originally self-published, but they caught on and became a commercial phenomenon. James sold more than 165 million copies of her books and the three film adaptations grossed $US1.35 billion.
The undeniable success of Fifty Shades have seen other female writers traverse down that path, taking an existing piece of pop culture they had a genuine interest in, connect with like-minded audiences online and turn it something that stands on its own.
It’s not a coincidence that most of these stories are happening primarily in the romance fiction space, there’s a decades-long history of “shipping” fan fiction in which writers take two existing characters and imagine a different narrative for them.
Sometimes it’s also just useful to have the frameworks to test things. Rachel Reid took the first book she’d written in her now Heated Rivalry series, re-skinned it as Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes (Marvel) fan fiction, posted it to forums for feedback, and then turned it back into her own creations before submitting it to a publisher.
Fans have long suspected Cassandra Clare’s young adult fantasy novels Mortal Instruments was based off her Harry Potter fan fiction, including one story she called The Draco Trilogy. Clare has denied it but that hasn’t stopped the internet from continuing to make the link.
Casey McQuiston, the author of Red, White and Royal Blue, has faced similar speculation that her popular novel and film adaptation was derived from fan fiction she wrote and posted about The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield.
Because fan fiction doesn’t have to be grounded in fake characters, it can also be about real people.
Famously, Harry Styles and One Direction have inspired multiple romance stories, notably The Idea of You, which then turned into a movie in which Anne Hathaway plays a 40-year-old single mother who is wooed by a boy band idol, and After, a 2019 romantic drama based on Wattpad stories that clocked one billion reads.
