The Idea of You has been rumored to be fan fiction itself, based on an idea from none other than Harry Styles. The movie follows a 40-year-old single mom (Anne Hathaway) who manages to court a lead singer (Nicholas Galitzine) from a super popular band. It mixes the age gap topic with romance. Here are 5 more romance movies that are essentially fan fiction that I’ve put together that I think you should watch.
5 Movies Like The Idea of You
The Twilight Trilogy
Twilight Promotional Image (Credit – TheThings)
The writer of the hugely popular franchise, Stephanie Meyer, confirmed that she started writing Twilight after she had dreamt the premise. In various interviews, she stated that the idea for many characters was inspired by the band My Chemical Romance. As well as being the result of fiction written by a fan, there still exists a forum for further Twilight fan fiction, and in turn, this piece of work would inspire another massive pop culture phenomenon that we will talk about next.
50 Shades of Grey
50 Shades of Grey (Credit – Medium)
EL James’ would write the bondage-based soft erotic series 50 Shades of Grey, much to the delight of wine aunts all over the world, resulting in a film deal that would make the books incredibly well known, despite often being derided and criticized by many critics and reviewers.
James was quite open about the project being fan fiction based on Meyers’ characters. With sales of the book soaring above 30 million copies in over 37 countries, it is hard to claim that the property was unsuccessful. Perhaps James managed to capture the zeitgeist at the time, leading to a massive surge in popularity, but it is well-known that it all came from fan fiction.
After (2019)
After (2019) (Credit – IMDb)
You may notice that a lot of fan fiction does seem to lend itself to romantic liaisons, and you can see it within the two previous entries on this list. Continuing the trend was the After series, which follows the roller coaster, often toxic, relationship between Hardin and Tessa as they attend college together, facing various obstacles.
Again, with a connection to Harry Styles, the fan fiction from writer Anna Todd had to be reworked quite dramatically before being made into a movie, as the film wanted to be sure that any chance of it being associated with the One Direction star was taken out of the equation. The result divided audiences, making this a less successful attempt at taking fan fiction to the next level, but it led to sequels, so it must have had a fan base somewhere.
Galaxy Quest (1999)
Galaxy Quest (Credit – IMDb)
This sci-fi cult classic comedy has an A-list cast and is perhaps a more meta entry than the others on our list. The story sees the cast of a sci-fi TV show, modeled on the Star Trek TV series from the ’60s, being taken for the real thing by an alien race and forced into helping them fight against an alien invader.
The idea takes fan fiction and expands on it. It is said that the scene in the film where Tim Allen is in the men’s room and overhears people talking about the cast of the fictional TV show being “nobodies” is based on a real event that happened to Star Trek star William Shatner—circles within circles.
10 Things I Hate About You
10 Things I Hate About You (Credit – Vox)
Depending on how you look at the rules surrounding fan fiction, you could say that taking established characters from other works of literature and then using them in your own way is a pretty solid way of describing the practice. So with that in mind, 10 Things I Hate About You falls into the category, as it takes its story from William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. The 90’s teen flick would subvert the roles of the major players, but at its heart is fan fiction.
Hopefully, my list is a good start, but do you know of other movies like The Idea of You? Comment below and let us know.
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