12 Movies And TV Shows That Started As Fan Fiction

Fan fiction is what happens when people take pre-existing characters from stories that they love and write them into entirely new directions. These authors mix and match character relationships, explore world mashups, and play with story tropes to their hearts content. Fan fiction has arguably existed for as long as stories have been inspiring fans, but in recent decades studios have been breaking out movie crews to turn fanfics into movies and TV shows.

People have more access to fan fiction than ever before, and that means all kinds of stories are coming to the forefront. There are plenty of steamy romance movies like “Fifty Shades of Grey” in the fan fiction genre, but not all fanfics go in an R-rated direction. By combining elements from different stories, fan fiction can turn into some fantastic genre-bending TV or bring a new twist to a classic plot audiences are already familiar with. The genre is deeper than you think, and you’ll be amazed at the kinds of shows and movies that started as fan fiction.

Fan fiction has become particularly popular in the past couple of decades, but people have been writing it for much longer than that. It’s hard to say when the first fan fiction was written, but we know that one of the first fan fiction movies ever created came out in 1984. If you aren’t a hardcore Trekkie, then you might not know how a piece of fan fiction became a “Star Trek” movie, but the story really is incredible.

Fan fiction exists almost exclusively on the internet, but in the ’80s a physical fan-made magazine changed the course of “Star Trek” history forever. Harre Bennett is a renowned movie producer who worked on the “Star Trek” films and helped give us “The Wrath of Khan.” But after that movie, he and the other people working on the “Star Trek” franchise needed a fresh idea to keep the story going. Bennett was locked into the “Star Trek” fan community, and one day he encountered a poem written from Captain Kirk’s perspective in a fan-made magazine. In the poem Kirk expressed his grief about losing his friend, and Bennett was inspired to create the story for “The Search for Spock.”

Some fan fiction stories get converted into official canon when they’re made into movies or TV shows. Others mix up their titles, characters, or plot elements to hide the fact that they were ever fan fiction to begin with. And then there are some projects, like “Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies” that wear their fan fiction identity with, well, pride.

The 2016 movie is based on a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith that reimagines 19th-century England as an apocalyptic zombie wasteland. Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) has been well trained in the art of fighting the undead, and partly because of her skill she initially has no interest when she meets the famed zombie killer Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley). Eventually fate, and a significant amount of blood and zombie guts, bring the two of them together in a romance for the ages.

Grahame-Smith, who’s also the author of novel-turned-movie “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” has a passion for reimagining classic novels and even real-life stories. His mashup fan fictions might be goofy on the surface, but he often gives them some genuine depth. “What I try to do each time out, not only with my books, but TV and movies, is try to give an A-level of execution to a B-genre concept,” Grahame-Smith said in an interview with Tim Talks Hollywood.

“After” follows a college romance between freshman Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) and mysterious upper classman Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). Their brief and steamy romance causes Tessa to reevaluate her hometown relationships and her college aspirations. It also kicks off an entire romance movie franchise that released one film a year from 2019 to 2023. “After” was not a critical darling, but the series has a diehard fanbase that seemingly loves each movie more than the last.

Those hardcore fans have probably been following “After” since it first came into existence in another form on a fan fiction website. Anna Todd began writing a story based on the band One Direction in 2013, and if you’ve ever thought fan fiction was a niche genre, this one will prove you wrong. By 2014, Todd’s story had gotten more than a billion reads on Wattpad and the road was paved for the “After” series that exists today. Some people in the fan fiction community have conflicted feelings about stories like Todd’s that are based on real-life people, but despite those concerns, “After” is one of the biggest success stories in fan fiction.

The “Fifty Shades of Grey” series is arguably the most famous piece of fan fiction in the world. The story originated on the classic Fanfiction.net website, where E.L. James began experimenting with an alternate take on Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight.” Because of “Fifty Shades,” people often associate fan fiction with adult content, but at the time, the website asked James to take down some of her steamiest chapters. James’s story became so popular it got picked up by Random House Vintage Books, eventually selling more than 70 million copies and turning into the trilogy and movie series that we know today.

“Fifty Shades” follows 21-year-old English undergrad Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) who gets to interview billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) for her college newspaper. During their first meeting, Christian becomes infatuated with Anastasia. Before long the two of them begin an affair, and Ana soon finds herself head-over-heels in love and completely outside of her comfort zone. But it’s not just Christian’s extreme wealth that’s pushing Ana outside her usual boundaries — he also has extreme sexual preferences that the two of them need to negotiate to make sure their love survives.

“Gabriel’s Inferno” is another film trilogy for romance fans who love long stories that they can sink into. All three parts of “Gabriel’s Inferno” were directed by Tosca Musk and debuted in 2020, almost a decade after Sylvain Reynard published the original book the movies are based on. The story is about an emotionally distant Dante expert named Gabriel Emerson (Giulio Berruti) who teaches at the University of Toronto. Julia Mitchell (Melanie Zanetti) enrolls at the University to try and escape her past, but when she crosses paths with Gabriel, their secret, shared history propels them into a torrid and potentially dangerous affair.

The movies adapt the original novel, but Reynard has published three direct sequels. “Gabriel’s Rapture,” “Gabriel’s Redemption,” and “Gabriel’s Promise” all continue the story. Another novel called “The Raven” kicks off a spin-off series with a distinctly supernatural twist. Those elements actually fit pretty naturally into the story, though, because the world of “Gabriel’s Inferno” began as a “Twilight” fan fiction. In its first iteration, the story was called “The University of Edward Masen” and published under the name Sebastien Robichaud, but the core of the story remains the same in the officially published version and the movie.

“Supernatural” tells the story of the Winchester brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles). They travel the country looking for their father and hunting all kinds of evil beings and demonic forces. “Supernatural” ran for an incredible 15 seasons, and even though the show began as an original story created by Eric Kripke, it inspired countless viewers to write fan fiction along the way.

In its 200th episode, “Supernatural” paid homage to all the fans who’d been writing their own stories within the universe for years, and the show’s writers found ways to get in on the fun. The episode is literally titled “Fan Fiction,” and it features a mysterious high school theater that’s putting on a production of, wouldn’t you know it, “Supernatural.” Writer Robbie Thompson told KSiteTV that creating the episode was all about playing into his love of fandom. “It was about just trying to connect with my own sense of being a fan,” Thompson said. “[Fan fiction] is always a great way to express who you are.” The episode is full of meta-commentary and inside jokes, and viewers think it’s a touching love letter to the fan community and the art of fan fiction in general.

Amazon released “Red, White, & Royal Blue” in 2023 to positive reviews from critics and viewers. The movie takes a premise that’s just silly enough to be on the edge of believable and spins it into a delightful love story. Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) is attending the wedding of Prince Phillip, Duke of Cambridge, with his mother, the President of the United States. Alex runs into his old rival, the young Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), and the two of them get into a massively embarrassing public argument. In the flurry of press appearances that follow, Alex and Henry start spending more time together than ever before, and the intensity of their feelings for each other starts to take on a new form.

“Red, White, & Royal Blue” is based on a novel from Casey McQuiston. The novel and the movie have all the hallmarks of great fan fiction, which is why many people suspect that’s where the story started. Online fans have debated what kind of fan fiction the story may have been originally, with some linking the mannerisms of McQuiston’s leading men to characters from “Merlin.” The fan fiction speculation is so rampant that Polygon asked McQuiston about it directly in an interview, and the author gave a coy response that only poured more fuel on the speculative fire. “Fanfiction is pure pleasure reading,” McQuiston said, adding, “It is here to pacify, it is here to transform something that you love into something that you could love in a different way. It’s just pure love.”

“The Mortal Instruments” could be considered one of the most popular book series that started out as fan fiction, but author Cassandra Clare might disagree. The story follows a young girl named Clary who discovers a world full of magic, and more than a few battles between good and evil, hiding right under the surface of our modern world. If the basics of that premise sound familiar, they should.

Before the first book in the series was published, Clare was a celebrated fan fiction author online with a particular penchant for stories set in the “Harry Potter” universe. Fans have noticed that “The Mortal Instruments” has some striking similarities to Clare’s most popular fanfic, so many think the series was inspired by her online writing. Clare hasn’t claimed the story is based on her fanfic, however, and since writing the series, she’s distanced herself from her fan fiction community.

“The Mortal Instruments” has been adapted into live action twice. In 2013 fans got a feature-length take on the story that completely bombed with critics and audiences, ending the potential movie franchise before it started. Fortunately for fans of the books, three years later the CW debuted a series called “Shadowhunters” based on Clare’s novels. That show ran for three seasons and became one of the more well-received adaptations of a fan fiction story.

Fan fiction typically exists online where writers share their work with other enthusiastic members of their favorite fandoms. The most well known pieces of fan fiction might have started out on sites like Archive of Our Own (AO3), but there are some stories that have gone straight from a fan’s explosive imagination to the big screen.

“Prey” is a movie set in the same universe as all the other “Predator” movies, but it takes place in the early 18th century. In the movie, a Predator lands on Earth near a Comanche tribe and ends up crossing paths with a young woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder). All her life Naru has dreamed of being a hunter, but now her dream’s become a nightmare as she’s fighting for her very life.

“Prey” writer and director Dan Trachtenberg was in middle school when he first heard about “Predator.” Trachtenberg told Fresh Fiction that he was on a field trip when one of his friends narrated the movie’s plot to him. “The one thing that really stuck with me was there was a fight on a bridge over a waterfall, between Billy, the Native American track, and the Predator.” The only problem is that the scene doesn’t actually exist. Trachtenberg learned the truth when he saw the movie years later and became a massive “Predator” fan. His mistaken memory became the basis for his own screenplay, which he later pitched to 20th Century Studios as a potential part of the “Predator” universe.

“Wicked” can be considered a piece of fan fiction in more ways than one. The two-part film from director Jon Chu is an adaptation of a celebrated Broadway musical that debuted in 2003, and you could look at the musical as fan fiction. It reimagines the novel “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, and the musical takes quite a few liberties with Maguire’s characters and plotlines. From that perspective, the “Wicked” musical is one of the few pieces of fan fiction that has been openly celebrated by the creator of the source material. In an interview with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Maguire said, “I have been so pleased with the work that [book writer] Winnie Holzman has done for ‘Wicked.’ She has taken a novel that is like a symphony in my heart and she has turned it into an opera.”

Of course, Maguire’s novel is itself a piece of fan fiction. He began writing the novel “Wicked” in the 1990s, when “The Wizard of Oz” by Frank L. Baum was nearly a century old. Maguire has said that from a very young age he loved Baum’s book, and the film adaptation from 1939, but he had many lingering questions about the land of Oz. “Wicked” started out as his attempt at answering some of his own questions and developing the pieces of Baum’s world that he felt were unfinished. We’ve all got fan fiction to thank for characters like Elphaba and musical classics like “Defying Gravity.”

“Outlander” is a long-running Starz series about World War II nurse Claire Randall (Caitríona Balfe). After the war Claire is looking forward to settling down with her husband Frank (Tobias Menzies), but one day Claire finds herself mysteriously transported back in time to the 18th century. With no way home, Claire marries a man named Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). As their relationship begins to bloom, Claire’s life becomes more complicated than ever, and her travels continue taking her places she never could have imagined.

The entire “Outlander” timeline spans multiple lifetimes, but the whole show is based on the book series from author Diana Gabaldon. Some of Galbaldon’s readers think that her books started out as fan fiction. On the author’s website she says that she got the idea from an episode of “Doctor Who” about an 18th-century Scotsman (also named Jamie). Fans think there’s an even deeper connection between Galbaldon’s books and the classic sci-fi series. Some have pointed to an old Facebook post where Galbaldon elaborated on how the plot of that “Doctor Who” episode informed her series to argue that “Outlander” is a piece of fan fiction.

Galbaldon’s views on fan fiction complicate the argument that some fans have tried to make. The author has been an outspoken critic of fan fiction, and in a since-deleted blog post that often gets reposted on Reddit, she argued that writing it was immoral. “Outlander” may be contested ground, but fan fiction supporters would love to claim the outstanding series as part of the genre.

More fan fiction has broken into the mainstream than people think. The movies on this list aren’t the only fan fiction adaptations out there, and the trend is only growing. In 2022 fans of the genre found out that they’d be getting another major addition to the list: A feature-length adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s “The Love Hypothesis.”

Hazelwood’s novel plays with some classic tropes to tell a charming romance story. The book follows Olive Smith, a Ph.D. candidate who is so locked into her studies she doesn’t have time for a relationship. To stop her friend from pestering her about dating, Olive strikes up a “fake” relationship with well-known professor Adam Carlsen, but pretty soon Olive’s played-up feelings start to get a little more real.

Hazelwood has said that her entire writing career got started by her love of fan fiction. After writing lots of “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” fanfic, Hazelwood began reworking some of her stories with an agent, and eventually the book that fans know and love today was born. The announcement of the adaptation came hot on the heels of the book’s publication in September 2021, but fans had to wait much longer to see the film. In 2025, “The Love Hypothesis” cast Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman in the lead roles, with a release date pending.