If you’ve seen the news that author Ali Hazelwood’s beloved novel, The Love Hypothesis, is being adapted into film, then there’s a good chance you’re also privy to the casting fan fiction discourse.
For those unfamiliar with Hazelwood, the popular romance writer was originally a neuroscience professor who dabbled in fan fiction (fanfic) before being discovered and published. Her background has formed the basis for many of her novels which centre on women in STEM and academia.
The Love Hypothesis, was the New York Times best-selling author’s debut novel and, you guessed it, originally began as a fan fic. Now, with the film adaptation in the works and the cast announced, the internet is freaking out over a surprising crossover…
Is The Love Hypothesis Based On Fanfic?
Yes, Ali Hazelwood’s first novel was originally written as a Star Wars ‘Reylo’ (Rey & Kylo Ren, for the uninitiated) fan fiction. After being spotted by a publishing agent it was reworked and rewritten into the contemporary love story that came to be The Love Hypothesis.
“My agent started reading my fanfiction on AO3 and then she reached out,” Hazelwood told Collider in 2021.
“I took the fanfiction of mine that I thought was the most reworkable” she recounted before adding it went through “approximately 70 billion more revisions” before being published as The Love Hypothesis.
The novel’s two main characters are called Olive and Adam, with many assuming the latter is a nod to the actor who played Kylo Ren, Adam Driver.
Which leads us to the casting discourse…
Daisy Ridley & Tom Bateman The Love Hypothesis Discourse, Explained
The announcement that Tom Bateman would play the lead role of Adam in The Love Hypothesis adaptation alongside Lili Reinhart has sent the internet into meltdown. Why? Well it all has to do with the fanfic lore.
Tom Bateman is married to Daisy Ridley in real life, who famously played Rey, one half of the fanfic dream couple, in the Star Wars films.
In Hazelwood’s original fan fiction, the villain of the story was named Dr. Tom Benton, allegedly after Daisy’s husband.
It’s safe to say the fandom feltTom Bateman being cast as the love interest in a film based on fanfiction about his wife and her co-star was utterly diabolical. And, we tend to agree.
“Imagine someone made a fanfiction about your WIFE and her COSTAR’s chemistry from a trilogy they starred in and that fanfic is PUBLISHED into a book and they cast YOU as the male lead,” one twitter user wrote.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
